


the storm is in my hair, and I must go

by gaywitches



Category: The Worst Witch (TV 2017)
Genre: F/F, Friends to Lovers, Happy Ending, Hicsqueak, Idiots in Love, Pining, Slow Burn, TW: some mentions of suicide but nothing graphic, hecate is a gay disaster, i am terrible at tags, pippa is just adorable little pippa, this is seriously so sweet you might curl up and die, tw: bullying, tw: some references to child abuse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-06
Updated: 2021-03-10
Packaged: 2021-03-10 06:15:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 28
Words: 71,668
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27909613
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gaywitches/pseuds/gaywitches
Summary: "Pippa’s eyes flick to Hecate, who looks dangerously close to crying. It is the first time she has really seen the strange girl outside of their classroom, but in the daylight she doesn’t seem so strange after all. She seems real, and frightened, with a line of blood against her cheek."This piece charts the course of the friendship between Pippa and Hecate in their younger years and shifts to their reunion and growing relationship. This diverges from canon after The Spelling Bee. I have no idea how to do the description justice but I promise that it's worth a read.
Relationships: Hardbroom & Pentangle (Worst Witch), Hardbroom/Pentangle (Worst Witch)
Comments: 230
Kudos: 256





	1. the tiny knives of their mouths

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is a labour of love that began as a post-it note and spiralled beyond my control. In the process of writing it, procrastination and frustration led me to start three different fics for ships that’s I’m now embroiled in, two for a show I haven’t even seen. It’s been a rough ride.
> 
> I wrote this as a comfort piece for myself to escape from the world right now. To be honest, a lot of it is so deeply personal to me and I feel so protective over it that I wasn’t sure if I would share it at all. I have decided that I will, in the hope that it brings someone else out there some comfort, too. With that being said, please be kind in the comments. If you don’t like it that’s absolutely fine, just don’t tell me about how much you hate it.
> 
> Some chapters are long, some are short, some are reasonable, some are terrible, some are happy, a few are sadder, and many are just testaments to me losing my mind.
> 
> Slightly non-canon as for a multitude of reasons I despise the Indigo Moon storyline and this fic acts like that entire arc does not exist. It is, in my opinion, woefully inadequate and makes very poor sense in terms of the Hicsqueak back story, among other things that I will no doubt write a rant about on tumblr soon.
> 
> I have already written all but the last three chapters, so I am posting as I edit in the hope that it'll be the inspiration I need to finish them off. The rest probably needs more editing but I will come back and fix any mistakes later.
> 
> The title comes from a Yeats poem. The rest of the chapter titles are from the works of Mary Oliver.

It is the time of year at Cackle’s when many things may or may not be alive, and there is a sense in the air that they are still deciding. A thin layer of fog hangs low to the ground, slicking the mossy paths with its moisture. Chestnut husks cling to every surface, dressed in silk like tiny residents of the local graveyard. 

Hecate dawdles along, her face buried in a potions textbook, trying to sidestep the clumps of leaves and stones that have bunched together in the rain. Her shoes are worn enough already and she’s not sure if they will withstand another battering. There’s only so many times you can repair leather before the holes refuse to mend. Another pair is out of the question.

She makes it almost to the turning for the left wing when she collides heavily with a brute force, her belongings scattering across the floor. A sharp sound of surprise spills from her throat. Too stunned initially to react, Hecate’s arms hang limp at her sides and her fingers flex, vaguely registering what they’ve dropped.

“Hey! Watch where you’re going, _Dracula,_ ” someone hisses, and it takes Hecate a moment to realise that they are talking to her. She looks up from surveying her books to see Yarrow Cornish in front of her, stony faced and bitter. It’s the first time that Hecate remembers any of her classmates addressing her directly and she balks, stooping as she scrambles to collect her possessions. 

Her books are impossibly caked in mud. The pages flap in the wind as she bundles them into her arms, worrying over whether she will be able to undo the damage. Library fines are steep and she hasn’t got many coins left to last the term.

As Hecate stands, she notices more girls shrouding them. The two flanking Yarrow, Ebony and Juniper, are sniggering, a loud, almost deafening sound that makes Hecate want to run. Yarrow squares up to her, uncomfortably close. Her red hair twists into fiery corkscrews, gorgon-like and wild, against her scalp. She seems to tower over her, though Hecate’s the tallest in their year.

Hecate feels her chest beginning to burn. She’s well aware that Yarrow is the most popular witch in her class, the top of a hierarchy that Hecate has never paid much mind to until now. Her parents had paid generously to secure her a place at the school, donating substantial funds for the new library, which she has never stepped a foot inside. She flaunts her status like a sceptre and the other girls hang on her every word, desperate for a slice of popularity.

“Well?” Yarrow’s voice is demanding, her hand wedged on her hip. Disdain drips from every word. “Are you going to apologise to me or not?”

Hecate straightens awkwardly, like a plant in a dark room growing and growing as it tries to find the sunlight. She fiddles with the strap of her satchel.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t...” Hecate’s eyebrows draw together, remorse flooding her features. Her words are uncertain and flimsy, like a fawn trying to find its footing. The other girls stare at her expectantly, nudging each other and smirking. 

She swallows harshly. This sudden thrust into the spotlight is too much. She’s not sure what she’s done to provoke such hatred from her classmates. The back of her neck prickles, uneasiness mounting as she starts to suspect that this encounter had been planned. 

Hecate has always tried to keep to herself, to mind her own business, too burdened by hers to take on anyone else’s. She’s kept company only with the owls and the rats, feeding them scraps that she secretes away from her plate at meals. She has never wanted any kind of attention from her peers, let alone animosity. 

The fringe of woodland that runs in the distance is home to wild deer that run rampant across the edges of the grounds. Hecate admires their antlers: marvels that they wear their weapons in public. They have no notion of keeping anything up their sleeves. 

If only it was the same with her classmates, though perhaps she hadn’t been vigilant enough to note the signs of their dislike. Sometimes it is better to see the snake before it strikes.

She tries again, wanting this to end. Teetering on a ledge that she is rapidly slipping over. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—” 

Yarrow slices through her reply. “Oh, I think you knew exactly what you were doing. Not enough just to sabotage my potion so you come top of the class yet again.” An icy breeze whips around them but Hecate barely feels it, goosebumps already covering her skin. 

And Yarrow is nowhere near finished. “Always the know-it-all, trying to shove in our faces how clever you are. Well, guess what? It’s pathetic. You’re a nobody.” Loathing ripples off her like dark clouds blotting out the horizon.

Hecate’s insides coil tightly like a serpent readying itself, heat rising to her cheeks as she shakes her head. Apprehension is building swiftly within her stomach. This seems to be spinning out of control so quickly and she can’t find her balance. 

“I would _never—_ ” She wants to protest against the accusations steeped against her that are nowhere near to being true, but she stops, anticipating that any words she offers will fall short. 

She’s had enough. Even if she has to walk the whole perimeter of the castle to get back it’s a better option than enduring any more of what’s unfolding here. Bowing her head, she turns on her heel to leave, but as she takes the first step she feels a sharp pain against her scalp. And then Yarrow’s fingers move down, snatching the middle of Hecate’s dark braid and yanking her backwards. 

Hecate barely resists the urge to scream, her hands flying up to free herself until she’s once again nose to nose with Yarrow. Her eyes close involuntarily and her jaw tightens. Hecate counts backwards from ten. Tries to list the ingredients for Ariadne’s serum one by one in her mind. _Orris root, ground citrine, a raven’s feather. A crow’s feather will do in a pinch._

“Where do you think you’re going?” Yarrow all but snarls, clicking her fingers at Juniper in some form of wordless instruction. “We aren’t done talking. Don’t you know that it’s very rude to walk away when someone’s speaking to you?” Hecate feels trapped and tiny, like she might at any second be snuffed out by a wet thumb and forefinger. Yarrow is too close, too close, and she can’t breathe.

Suddenly Juniper barrels forward, ripping the potions book from Hecate’s hands. She tosses it to the ground and stomps on it, grinding it underfoot. Hecate can hear titters of laughter swarming around her and it takes everything in her not to cry. She will not break in front of them, will not cower. She digs her nails into her palms until she’s sure she can feel muscle pushing back.

The trees a little way back, gnarled and noble oaks, cast shadows on the ground in front of her. Misshapen and bony as the undead. Sturdy secret keepers. She wants to hide amongst them, unseen and unnoticed, so that no one can ever find her again. She wishes to be as invisible as an uttered curse.

“No one likes you, you know? Just because Miss Greyhorn thinks you’re hot shit doesn’t mean anyone else does.” Yarrow is smiling in a way that makes bile rise in Hecate’s throat. The others are still eyeing her slyly, whispering between themselves, but Hecate’s vision is blurring and she can no longer make out faces. Only pearly white teeth and open mouths, twisting as they surround her.

“Truth be told,” Yarrow gestures around her in a circle, voice low and saccharine, “we’re all rather tired of your insufferable presence. So you might as well do us all a favour and end it like your—”

Something black and hot scorches through Hecate, the mass that has been expanding behind her ribs finally rupturing. Magic is organic and in constant flux. It abides by no rules, and unless properly channelled it has a way of creeping out and making up its own mind.

Before she can pin it down and control it, before she can even begin to think of the repercussions, Hecate throws up her wrist. Red sparks fly out and Yarrow is knocked from her feet, her words dying in the air as she hurtles backwards, landing unceremoniously on the floor. Hecate feels violently sick. There is something murky and dreadful in not knowing what your own hands might be capable of when pushed to the limit.

There’s only a split second that passes before Yarrow’s eyes lock with Hecate’s. It’s just enough time for Hecate to realise the gravity of her actions, the target that she has pinned against her forehead, though she suspects it was sketched there long before.

Yarrow rears up, screeching, grabbing Hecate by the shoulders and using all of her weight to shove her backwards as hard as she can. Magic is all well and good, but when it boils down to it, darker things require flesh and blood.

Like a piece of straw meeting a hurricane, Hecate’s lithe frame sails towards the ground erratically, knocking into a statue of Persephone cradling a posy of flowers. The impact brings it crashing down beside her, pieces shattering against the stone.

She is momentarily winded, her arms still covering her face as she desperately tries to get her bearings. The previous night had been witness to a hard frost and the path is still freezing beneath her. Her body is bent at an awkward angle, sprawled untidily across the cobbles. Her mouth tastes of salt.

The back of her head throbs and she feels dizzy, but she just about makes out Yarrow’s threat she fires it. “I will get you for this, Hecate Hardbroom. Count your days.” She wipes the back of her hand against her nose and is startled to find red smeared against her pale skin.

It is only then that Pippa nears the group, finally lifting her eyes from a well-worn copy of Jane Eyre. Her slight form edges closer, draped from head to toe in the pinkest robes imaginable. Her cheeks are ruddy from the wind and only add to the headlong assault of colour that nearly blinds Hecate as she squints against the pain in her shins.

In a sudden flash, Mistress Hazelgrove appears at the heart of the chaos, with the look of someone who has just been dragged into the cold from their favourite spot by the hearth.

“And just _what_ is the meaning of this rabble?” Burning eyes flit between the broken figure and Hecate’s drooping limbs. She turns sharply, scanning the faces of the other girls, who are now very interested in their shoelaces. Using her hand to shield the last rays of the sun from her face, Hecate tries desperately to make out what is unfolding.

Mistress Hazelgrove grunts, displeasure marring her typically schooled features. Her gaze drifts to Pippa and she closes her eyes, inhaling deeply. 

From the very start of her time at Cackle’s, Pippa had refused to wear anything but pink, much to the chagrin of the school board. The dress regulations were not taken lightly by the powers that be, but Pippa, too smart for her own good, and too sweet to be angry with, had matter-of-factly threatened to cite eleven separate stipulations of the Code that Cackle’s was violating, and eventually they had relented.

Usually, if there is mischief to be found, Pippa is knee-deep in the midst of it. Nothing serious, mind. Nothing sinister. But if one of Rudge’s strawberry pies vanishes from the kitchen, it is a fair bet that Pippa will be vehemently declaring her innocence in such matters with sticky, red fingers behind her back. On this occasion, however, Pippa’s eyes are wide, trying to work out what she’s missed.

Mistress Hazelgrove shifts again to look at Hecate who still hasn’t moved. Her robes are ripped and in dire need of stitches, dirt crusts her scraped knees and she is breathing heavily, very probably on the verge of tears. This is not what she envisaged when she began turning in for the evening. Shaking her head, she grudgingly proffers her hand towards the trembling girl on the ground. 

Hecate’s eyes dart wildly, not daring to look at Mistress Hazelgrove as she solemnly reaches for the extended hand and allows herself to be lifted to her feet. 

“I’m sorry, Mistress Hazelgrove, I—” she stammers, tripping over her words. Dread twists in her abdomen. She chews her lip, unable to continue. _How is she supposed to explain herself with a thousand beady eyes watching her, waiting?_

She quickly casts a mending spell over the buckle of her shoe, which has somehow torn in the scuffle. It’s a shoddy job, but it will have to do under the circumstances.

“Who is responsible for this? I’ve a good mind to expel all of you insolent witches at once. Brawling like caged wolves will not be tolerated at this school.”

For what seems like an eternity, no one speaks. Hecate once again watches the shadows swaying on the floor, slow and ill-defined. _Enviable._

Yarrow’s voice unspools across the silence with cold conviction. “It was Pippa.” Pippa gapes, a peppermint hanging from her tongue, and manages only a small noise. Her golden hair glows against a backdrop of girls elbowing each other.

Hecate’s mouth opens. She wants to speak up, to tell the truth, to claim Pippa’s innocence, though she’s unsure if she was there, watching and tight-lipped, for the worst of it. A smug grin slides across Yarrow’s lips in triumph.

“Is this true, Pippa?” Mistress Hazelgrove frowns, disbelief evident, as she looks between the two offenders. She clicks her tongue. “Given your outstanding records I suppose that dismissal can be waved. But you know what the punishment is for quarrels such as this. The turret will be a sufficient remedy for your ills.”

 _The turret._ The threat of the tower has long kept many girls from stepping a foot out of line at Cackle’s. Rumours that it is haunted have swirled the campus for years. Tales of several students who had ventured to explore it one All Hallow’s and came back mute and shaken. At the very least, its rafters are filled with bats and spiders are no doubt present in their droves. 

Pippa’s eyes flick to Hecate, who looks dangerously close to crying. It is the first time she has really seen the strange girl outside of their classroom, but in the daylight she doesn’t seem so strange after all. She seems real, and frightened, with a line of blood against her cheek. 

Pippa has known Yarrow since they were infants, running around dwarfed by their mothers’ pointed hats. But she has changed, toughened, and Pippa fears what Yarrow might do to someone like Hecate if they are alone together each night in the turret. She thinks of Jane in the Red Room, alone and helpless. How things might have been different if only she’d had a friend by her side. Makes up her mind and does the only thing that her heart will permit.

“Yes, I’m afraid it was me, Mistress Hazelgrove.” Hecate’s gaze locks with Pippa’s and she is surprised to find that her eyes are almost beseeching. She doesn’t understand why Pippa has confessed to something that she’s not guilty of doing, but she bites back the urge to protest, afraid to incur more of Yarrow’s wrath. _Cowardly._ But there’s also something unspoken that Pippa is trying to communicate, and she instinctively knows that she should not challenge her.

Instead, she says meekly, “And me, Mistress Hazelgrove.” Shame scorches her cheeks for a multitude of reasons, but she wants to offer something in return, though she can’t pinpoint Pippa’s motives. _Though her words are about as useful as a bent penny._

“I’d puzzled that one out,” the older woman snaps, waving her hand dismissively in the air. There’s anger there, but Hecate surmises that it’s also annoyance at being kept from something that she feels to be entirely more pressing. _A bottle of port, perhaps,_ judging from the leathery scent of berries that Hecate smells on the breeze.

Mistress Hazelgrove sighs, rubbing a hand across her forehead. “Pippa, your parents are going to be very disappointed when they hear about what has transpired here, as am I. And Hecate—” She turns her attention to the latter, catching herself before she speaks. It’s an omission that is almost a kindness. She says more gently, “Gather your things. And collect some spare blankets from your dormitories. I’ve been told that the turret is rather drafty.”

Hecate knows better than to argue, doesn’t dare to test the consequences should she refuse the request. Though she’s indignant at the injustice of it all, she spares a glance at the shock of pink beside her and eases. Her significant annoyance dissipates, giving way to something quiet, and almost warm.


	2. rising out of the rough weeds

As the moonlight slips in with gusts of wind through the window, casting patches of white across the dingy room, Hecate sits down on the edge of her bed. Pippa is crouched in front of her suitcase, pulling out extra layers. Somehow, in the low light, Hecate feels brave enough to ask the question that refuses to stay bottled.

“Why did you lie?” She worries her lip between her teeth, fingers fiddling with her bedsheets as she spreads them out. She looks across at Pippa, and Pippa is stricken by how powerful her gaze is, arresting and fierce.

“I’ve heard that the tower is lovely this time of year.” Hecate’s mouth quirks, taken aback by the lilt in Pippa’s voice, the soft humour.

She stills, dropping the fabric in favour of wringing her hands together in her lap. “Thank you.” It’s only a whisper, faint as the last embers of a fire. Hecate’s lips twitch into a small smile and the air rushes out of Pippa’s lungs. It’s the first time she’s ever seen Hecate smile and it makes her feel special in way that she cannot fathom or name. Tears scald the corners of her eyes and she only just succeeds in keeping them at bay. 

Pippa steadies herself. “Besides, it’s not that bad. With a few adjustments, I think we can make something of the place.” Rifling through her belongings once more, she picks up a dusky grey jumper and holds it out for Hecate to take. 

“Here. Put this on or you’ll be a block of ice by the morning.” It’s not the only instance that Hecate has been likened to such, but Pippa’s words betray no malice. With clunky hands, she accepts the offering gratefully. The wool is smooth against her frame and she runs her fingers over the knitted patterns, following them like secret messages.

There are blackbirds nesting in the wooden beams above their heads. The floorboards are uneven and ill-set, shifting with every movement of the building so that footsteps creak throughout the night. Pipes jut out of the walls, leading nowhere, rusted from years of neglect and disuse. Something, somewhere, is dripping.

But Hecate is not scared by the walls that groan or winds that whistle through the roof. She’s used to long, empty corridors, and furniture draped in dust covers in rooms that no longer remember life. Biscuit tins filled with letters marked return to sender. A maze of loneliness in the ruins of the house that became a mausoleum. And here, next to Pippa, she feels the closest thing to a home that she’s known in a decade.

They work together to make the place as liveable as they can. They block the gaps in the windows with cloth and string fairy lights and rowan charms from the ceiling. Hecate doesn’t have many things but the few possessions she has she places in a small wooden chest at the foot of her bed.

As the days go on, they decorate the wooden table in their room with tiny offerings, an unspoken kinship forming between them as they each add to their collection of dried flowers and pebbles and shells. A kingfisher feather, rich topaz and turquoise. A cluster of candles with wax melting down to the wood. A chipped figurine of a fox that Pippa finds in a broom cupboard. Broken pieces of china with intricate blue swirls given to them by the ground.

On the first of their Fridays together, the girls’ post day, Pippa notices that Hecate doesn’t receive anything from home. They are a few tables apart, Pippa seated with Juliet and another girl, but the sight of Hecate brings a lump to Pippa’s throat. She is impassive, stoic, but Pippa can tell from the tremor in her jaw that it hurts her to see a dining hall filled with gleeful correspondence and love. 

She doesn’t want to pry. Hecate is reserved and private and rarely speaks of her life outside of Cackle’s, though Pippa has heard through the grapevine about the fate of her mother. She considers what to do for a long time, finally settling on penning a handwritten note to her own mother that she hopes is not too meddlesome. 

The following week when the post comes, Pippa flops down on the bench next to Hecate. Hecate seems startled by the sudden company, her eyes roaming to the table filled with Yarrow and her comrades that Pippa usually joins. She observes Pippa carefully, her mouth opening in question. Before she speaks, Pippa holds out a package in hands.

“My mother sent this for us to share,” Pippa smiles, nodding at both of their names, written in swirled calligraphy, on the label.

Hecate stares at her for a moment, then looks down at the brown parcel in her hands. “There must be some mistake,” she whispers, sheepish, even as her finger follows the curves of her name until it reaches the end. She shifts awkwardly in her seat, shoulders sagging.

“Nonsense, no mistake about it.” Hecate watches Pippa uncertainly until Pippa’s impatience wins out. She gestures for Hecate to open it. “Go on, it’s usually something sweet and I’m rather peckish. Old Rudge’s lunch was practically inedible.”

With one final glance at Pippa, still checking, still disbelieving, Hecate relents. She undoes the string around the middle, painfully slowly, peeling back the folds of paper as if unearthing a rare jewel. Finally, she has a box of homemade cinder toffee nestled in her palms. She holds it like a miracle.

“I knew it!” Pippa’s joy rings out between them and it’s like Hecate is seeing her, really seeing her, for the first time. Caring is messy. _Dangerous._ But Hecate begins to wonder if it might be worth it to let Pippa in, just a little more.

That afternoon, they sit in their window seat, propped up by pillows Pippa has fashioned from a battered sofa they’d found in one of the old storage rooms. They pass the box of toffee back and forth, sharing the sweet treat as Pippa tells her about summers spent in France and Switzerland. It’s cosy, and safe, and Hecate muses that it might _almost_ be friendship.

Other things, in the coming weeks, become just theirs. On one particularly cold day, when the air freezes each of Hecate’s breaths into talcum powder clouds, she finds the carcass of a mouse beside a nest of pups. A casualty of Miss Quince’s cat, its small body lies blank and unmoving. Pain darts through Hecate’s chest as she kneels, surveying the newly orphaned babies with wet eyes.

Her hands are still flecked with earth when she returns to their room, knees damp from bending to perform burial rites, cradling the bundle of scraps and purrs. Pippa puts down her notebook, her pen clattering under the bed somewhere, and rushes to Hecate’s side.

“Their mother—” Hecate sniffs, her voice wobbling out as she shakes her head from side to side.

Pippa has already learnt about Hecate’s father, a cruel man with unpredictable moods and a penchant for fits of rage, though Hecate has not elaborated much, yet. She knows about her timepiece, the one things that Hecate treasures from her old life.

But Hecate does not tell Pippa, then, that is was she who had found her mother, sprawled, hands splayed out across the bank of the stream by their house. _Skin white as snow._ Mercifully face down. A siren spat out by the current. That as little more than an infant she had bent down beside her and pressed her fingers palm to palm against the dead hand of the only person who had ever loved her. That she’d never felt safe since that night, until Pippa.

Still, Pippa runs a hand down her back, soothing her, trying to tell Hecate that she understands, that she’s not alone. “We’ll look after them now,” Pippa vows softly, steering Hecate to an empty corner of the room where she can place the nest. “There must be some books in the library that can help us.”

Hecate knows what it is to search for whatever crumbs of kindness you can find. How like Hansel and Gretel it’s easy to lose all sense of direction without them. So they nurture the pups by hand, mutually deciding that magic _just wouldn’t be right._

“I’m naming this one Cully,” Pippa says one morning, very seriously, head tipped to one side. “Cully, and Rupert, and Isadora, and Cecil. But Cully shall be my favourite.” Hecate raises her eyebrows skeptically but does not comment, only laughs.

* * *

It is a violent night, wind howling through the rafters and whipping tall trees against the castle walls, when Hecate wakes, eyes squinting against the darkness. Rain slams against the thin pane of glass at their window and the items on the table are shaking as thunder rumbles outside.

She sees Pippa across the room, hands pressed firmly against her mouth as she tries to stifle her cries. Her whole body is shuddering. The pair of pink silk pyjamas, with her name stitched across the pocket, seem to drown her small frame as she quivers.

“Pippa, what’s the matter?” Hecate pushes back her blankets, sitting up to get a closer look.

Pippa’s mouth trembles, her bottom lip popping out as she clutches at her covers, closing her eyes. A flash of lightning brightens the space for a moment and she jumps, curling in on herself more tightly.

“Will you—will you sit with me?” Her voice is tiny and lost, a sound that Hecate barely recognises as the beam of light that is Pippa. Hecate untangles her long limbs from her bedclothes. Her black nightgown brushes her ankles as she floats across the room until she’s beside Pippa on the bed, not quite touching her.

“There’s nothing to be afraid of,” Hecate whispers gently, and Pippa nearly sobs at the raw honesty that she hears in Hecate’s words. They’re not said with condemnation or scorn, are not a sneer at Pippa’s childish fears. 

Instead, they sink quietly into the pit of Pippa’s chest, the light finally starting to shine there again. She takes Hecate’s hesitant smile and tucks it against her ribs. It calms her more than peppermint tea or pie crust promises ever could. She seals it away like a mantra inside of her.

Hecate has always loved storms. On many nights, by herself, she has scaled the rooftops under gathering clouds, arms outstretched with upturned hands, jaws wide open to gale. Part of her hoping against hope that the lightning might shock the life back into her, like Frankenstein’s creation. The rain settles her, readies her, giving her the distinct impression that something beyond her pitiful existence is waiting, just beyond her grasp.

Lightning sparks across the sky again and Pippa squeaks, reaching for Hecate’s hand, tethering herself to something solid and sturdy. _Dependable._ Something she instinctively knows she can stake her life on. 

Hecate nearly flinches at the proximity, the newness of it, but it seems to settle Pippa and that, she decides, is important to her. More important than preserving the space that she has tried to fashion around herself like a fortress. She’s afraid of her control slipping, of letting a life devoid of affection erupt into a craving that she cannot quench. But with Pippa Pentangle by her side, she fears she may be too late already. Surrenders willingly, come what may.

Their knees bump together under the sheets, Hecate’s angular as a crow’s wing, as she tells Pippa about the stars that they can see from their spot on the bed. Hecate recalls the tale of the Pleiades with as much exaggeration and gusto as she can muster, trying to distract her as best she can. 

“The seven sisters were so fed up with horrid Orion’s advances that they begged Zeus to help them. So taking pity on them, he turned them into doves who flew up into the night sky and hid away in the stars.” She squeezes Pippa’s hand tightly as she finishes, mostly to remind herself that this is real.

Pippa giggles, nudging Hecate’s arm. “Zeus seems like a bit of a hypocrite if you ask me.”

“Definitely,” Hecate replies, smiling. “But it’s— _nice_ —to imagine that they up there somewhere, safe from harm.” She stumbles over her words and Pippa feels like she’s discovered a new continent that is a secret thing, a marvel. _That is just hers._ Hecate is something extraordinary that no one else gets to see, and she wants to learn more, to really _know_ her.

She rests her head against Hecate’s shoulder and they talk late into the night. And safety, for both of them, begins to feel less like a story.


	3. the wind pried with its stiff fingers

The storm is still at its height the following afternoon. The mood in Miss Mayflower’s classroom is grim and heavy as she paces, mumbling under her breath. She flicks her wrists, summoning vials from the shelves around her and arranging them on the desk that sits in the middle of the floor. 

A window at the back of the room has been smashed through by a tree branch and glittering pieces line the basin below it. Shutters have been torn off ancient hinges. Thatching is peeking in from a collapsed beam. One girl, a junior, was struck earlier in the day by a falling gable in the grounds and sent immediately to the infirmary.

“I had hoped the weather might improve but it shows no signs of lessening. We need to gather ingredients by sundown if we are to prevent further calamities.” She pinches the bridge of her nose with her fingertips. “This is a very serious matter and I ask for your understanding and cooperation. I need four of our strongest fliers to assist me.”

Pippa stills Juliet’s hand from doodling in her notebook just in time as Miss Mayflower’s eyes scan the group of girls before her. “Let me see. Juniper, if you could go to the meadow by St. Jude’s paddock to collect wolfsbane. Juliet, if you’d be so kind as to pick some death caps from Terese’s glade. Marjorie, you can gather cowslips and water hemlock from the hillside by the far edge of Lethesmere.” 

She pauses, examining her options scrupulously. “And Pippa, a less glamorous task I concede, but we need some swan mussels from Lake Elysia. Everyone else must stay behind and prepare the rest of the tinctures ready for our return.”

Hecate sees the twitch in Pippa’s jaw, the pinch of her lips, like a fox caught in a trap. She’s busying her fingers with tying back her hair but it does little to hide the fact that she’s shivering. Hecate knows what this means for Pippa, what being out in the storm might do to her. 

“I’ll go.” Pippa turns her head sharply in Hecate’s direction but she refuses to meet her gaze. The ligaments in Hecate’s neck flex as she tightens her hand around her broom handle. “That is—Miss Mayflower, if it’s—if you’ll permit me, I’d like to go. I’ve been practising and I’d really like the chance to demonstrate. I’m sure that Pippa won’t mind.”

Hecate is, admittedly, not the most athletically skilled. In fact, truth be told, she’s one of the worst at flying in her year. Unless she’s on the ice she has very little balance, awkward limbs often misjudging her centre of gravity. But that pales in importance when Pippa is so frightened.

Hecate hears sniggering behind her. A few of the other girls share sly winks and nudge each other, all of which Hecate notices. It still cuts her to the quick, stings more than she will ever admit, knowing that the jibes and whispers are at her expense. She snags her lip between her teeth a bites hard enough to draw blood. And there’s a thin strand of pain, one that hurts most of all, that sears through her at the possibility that Pippa might be laughing, too.

Refusing to face her fully, lest her actions should be unwanted, misplaced, Hecate looks nervously at Pippa out of the corner of her eye. She blinks quickly, averting her gaze again, deciding it’s best not to know. She feels very exposed, as if her soul might at any moment appear outside of her body for all to see. _Ugly and crooked. Foolish._

Pippa is shellshocked, in awe, gratitude swelling like blown bubblegum inside her, coating everything with its sweetness. She wants to go to Hecate, to tell her how much this means to her. How much _Hecate_ means to her. That she’s the nicest, kindest person she’s ever met. She longs to wrap her up in her arms and transport them back to their little bubble, away from all these stupid girls. But she knows she can’t, not yet.

Whether she notices Pippa’s hesitation, or is impressed by Hecate’s newfound confidence, or cares about neither of those things and would simply rather be spending her energy elsewhere, Miss Mayflower grants the request. “Very well, Hecate. Just try to remain airborne, will you? It will save me a lot of paperwork.”

The flyers mill together, readying their things. “You? You barely know which way round the broom goes,” Juniper smirks haughtily. “You must have a death wish.”

“Fortunately for us, suicides do run in families.” Miss Mayflower is hard of hearing which Yarrow counts on, and Pippa seems too distracted to be listening, but Hecate hears all the same. Shame flares in her stomach like an old nemesis.

“And idiocy runs in others,” Hecate seethes, knuckles turning white, but she doesn’t flinch, mounting her broomstick. And with that she’s off, leaving an incensed Yarrow beneath her as she soars through the glassless window.

The wind is brutal, tearing at her plait and lashing against her cheeks. It’s nearly impossible to keep the broom pointing in the direction she wants to go. “This does not bode well,” she mutters to herself, but she persists, forehead pulled in concentration as she struggles against the knocks. Her timepiece bangs against her ribs, providing a steady comfort.

When she eventually reaches the edge of the lake, her eyes burn. She remembers a white dress, nearly transparent, hanging over lifeless limbs like wet paper. Dark hair so heavy with water that it had seemed like a black rope twisted around a neck. 

Water has many mouths, and not one of them is silent. She can hear the naiads calling to her. _Just lie down. You can breathe water just as you breathe air. It’s so easy. Only peace, forever._

But Hecate is doing this for Pippa. Pippa with her kind eyes and smiles and animated gestures. Pippa who is perfect, and filled with light and undeniably alive. The assurance of that is enough to buoy her to something real. Thunder rumbles overhead, angry and impatient.

She has to wade out knee-deep, pond weed tangling around her legs like the hands of some unknown ghost. She parts the water until she can finally see enough of the bottom to navigate, though it floods back and forth, obscuring her vision. Dipping her face beneath the surface, she runs a palm across the silt, digging.

Her hands are freezing, lips sore and chapped from the gale, but she presses on for what seems like hours until she finds the shells buried in the mud. She slips them into the pocket of her robes, takes a few minutes to steel herself, and heads back.

It’s not the smoothest of return journeys. The sky in nearly onyx, but she relies on the stars to chart her course. Hecate is still a little wobbly as she dismounts, the wooden floor a foreign surface. Pushing her hair out of her face, she tiptoes forward, placing the clams on the table with the other offerings. The other girls evidently made it back long before her, but she’s quietly pleased that she managed it. 

“It seems we’ll make a flyer out of you yet, Miss Hardbroom,” says Miss Mayflower, a glint of pride shining in her eyes. “Well done.”

Hecate retreats, flushing, turning awkwardly to send a brief, stiff smile to Pippa. She intends for it to be subtle, aware of the daggers the other girls are shooting her, aware of the cruel jokes and digs, but Pippa is having none of it. 

She runs over, throwing her arms around Hecate who is shaking from the icy chill, curls slick against her forehead, robes wet through. She spins them giddily, which Hecate’s body really could do without, but she’s too happy to care. 

When she pulls back, Pippa’s eyes are wet and glossy, teeming with tears. She remains pressed tightly against Hecate, holding her close, and she laces her fingers together at the base of Hecate’s skull. Hecate tenses at the overt display, but gives in, resting her hand tentatively at the small of Pippa’s back.

The top of Pippa’s head nuzzles against Hecate’s jaw, her eyelashes brushing her neck, and Hecate can feel the wispy impression of lips against her collarbone. 

It’s only for a moment, but when Pippa lets go she is beaming ear to ear, tucking a strand of Hecate’s hair back into its braid. Hecate blushes, casting her gaze down to where Pippa has linked their pinky fingers together.

“You girls may leave now, I have everything under control here,” Miss Mayflower permits, a glass spoon clinking against the vial in front of her as she stirs with vigour.

Hecate’s lips curve into a weak grin for Pippa, skin glowing in the faint candlelight, but her face drops when Yarrow slinks up to them, followed by Juniper and Madison. She performs a quick drying spell, banishing the water from her clothes, though they still dangle damply against her thin frame. She shudders.

“Come on, Pippa, you can shed the stray now. We’re going to go and brew some fig scrumpy.” Yarrow yanks her by the hand but Pippa snatches it back as if she’s been touched by something corrosive, not budging from Hecate’s side. Her robes are blotchy in the places where they met Hecate’s cloak and it might almost be comical if Pippa’s eyes were not so piercing. 

“No, thank you. I’d rather not.” She’s cloyingly polite, but the syllables drip with contempt. Yarrow glowers at Hecate, lip curling into what is nearly a snarl. Hecate shrinks, folding her arms around her torso and forcing a semblance of composure that she does not feel.

“Pippa, you should go with your friends.” Hecate’s looking down, trying to become as inconspicuous as she can, as if Pippa might not see her if she doesn’t meet her eyes.

“I am,” Pippa states, as if there’s no room for argument, tucking her arm through Hecate’s. The disarming honesty in her voice pulls a rug out from under Hecate and she feels herself bottoming out, unable rely on the boards beneath her feet. _Like Alice’s tumble down the rabbit hole._

Yarrow’s mouth opens and closes, contorting viciously, spite sharpening her stare. “You’re going to be sorry for this, Pip.”

“Somehow, I don’t think I am.” She shrugs off Yarrow’s attentions, offering Hecate a blinding smile as she nods towards the door. “Come on, let’s go and see if old Rudge has any hot chocolate stashed away in the pantry.”

She unwinds her pink cloak from around her shoulders, wrapping them both inside of it, and Hecate finally feels firm and warm on the ground.


	4. the light swept into all the corners

It’s a few days later when Pippa, rather anxiously, pulls out a set of shimmering watercolours from behind her back. Her hands are trembling, but she balances them delicately towards Hecate. 

“Here, these are for you. I borrowed them from Miss Wyndham.” Pippa figures that a slight untruth is not quite a lie. 

She will never tell Hecate that she bought the paints with her own money, stewed over them for days, trying to make sure that the set had the perfect shades. That she wants to erase every bad words that Hecate has heard said against her, every look of torment, every moment of hurt. 

“I noticed that you like illustrations. I thought, perhaps, that you could have a go at some of your own.” The way that Hecate turns the gift over in her hands, wordlessly checking for the catch, the joke, the hinge that will snag and launch out a host of compressed horrors, turns Pippa’s stomach as she sits down beside her.

“They’re just paints, I promise,” Pippa offers gently, an unspoken understanding travelling between them as Hecate moves to meet her eyes.

Hecate clicks the lid open and a watery smile blooms across her face. “They’re beautiful.” Her whisper is reedy and thin, fingers dancing over the spaces between the colours. _You're beautiful,_ Pippa’s mind fires back, though she doesn’t know where it’s come from, why it makes her cheeks feel like lava.

The room suddenly feels very, very stuffy. Hecate licks her lips as if readying herself to speak, falters, and then lifts her eyes to Pippa’s, almost pleading, willing her to understand how touched she is, how utterly dumb struck.

She wants to say something significant, something of value, but she can only find the wrong words. Finally, though hoarse, she managed to coax the truest ones she can find from her tongue. “Thank you.”

The gleam from the fairy lights above them reflects in the window pane behind their heads and settles across Pippa’s hair like cherry blossom. Very softly, Pippa inches her hand across the ledge between them, towards Hecate’s, until their little fingers overlap. The skin beneath hers is cool but she can feel Hecate’s pulse and it quickens her own heartbeat.

Hecate regards Pippa for a long time, her brow scrunched, eyelids fluttering like butterfly wings and casting shadows against her face. Then, after what seems like a small eternity, she leans cautiously, angling her long body sideways to press a shaky kiss against Pippa’s cheek. Afterwards, she rests her head against Pippa’s shoulder and Pippa beams and beams until her jaw aches.

* * *

Night after night Hecate paints galaxies and nebulae with such delicacy and precision that Pippa is mesmerised. She sits beside her as she earnestly lays down brushstrokes, each heavy with meaning. Secreted away on the shingles outside their window, which they manage to clamber out of undetected, they watch the midnight sky. Pippa fancies, sometimes, that it is watching them right back.

Hecate never tires of telling Pippa about the stars. They are memories, she says, of explosions, old and familiar as time itself. _Something to rely on, constant and loyal._ Something to hope for. That will still be there tomorrow, and the next night, and the night after that. _Friends that won’t ever leave._

It makes Pippa’s heart beat faster when she thinks of how she’s heard Hecate talking to the stars on occasion. How she seems to value their opinion. When she remembers the day Hecate tells her that not all stars are the same age, that they’re really a patchwork quilt of birth and combustion threaded into the cosmos. _A family tree._

“The constellations are just stories that we tell about the universe. They let us make our own meanings. Decide for ourselves what’s worth keeping,” Hecate explains one evening, pausing her brush to point out her favourite. _Cygnus, the Swan._ “I suppose that’s why I like them.”

Pippa watches, instead, the inside of Hecate’s wrist as it rises above them. She can see the silvery web of veins, the labyrinth of life that flows through her. Longs to bury a kiss there, in the hope that it might make its way through Hecate’s whole body like a balm of light. 

Hecate fidgets with the end of her braid, mistaking Pippa’s reverie for disinterest. “I’m sorry. I know I must be boring you.” She chews her lip, looking away awkwardly, but Pippa reaches forward, turning Hecate’s chin so that they are eye to eye.

“You are the least boring person I have ever met, Hecate,” Pippa assures, grinning wide, though she is on the verge of tears. Her chest is holding back a spindle of emotions that her brain cautions her against unravelling. “And my _very_ best friend.” It feels like a promise. Like an act of consecration.

* * *

Their once dilapidated room is gradually made anew from yelps of laughter, clean and crisp that resonate around the walls and take up residence in the corners. From shared secrets and the growing trust that can only form between two young girls who have not yet known true betrayal.

Hecate even lets Pippa, once, though she will deny it at all costs, paint her toenails pink. Few things surprise Pippa more than Hecate’s shy request as she finishes brushing polish onto her own toes, wiggling them in the air. “Can you—can you do mine, too?” Hecate sucks in her cheeks, embarrassed, feeling gawky and unsure. _Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to ask._

“Of course,” Pippa giggles, patting the bed beside her, and sunshine courses through Hecate, through the room, through the atmosphere. She’s certain that even the bones in her body are shining with its warmth. 

“Pink…pink was my mother’s favourite colour,” Hecate whispers, so faintly and wistfully that Pippa nearly slips with the brush. She gives Pippa a sweet, strained smile before dipping her head.

“Well, wherever she’s watching from, I’m sure she’ll be very proud.” Pippa’s tone is steeped in kindness and tears spring to Hecate’s eyes.

Pippa’s tongue pokes out of the corner of her mouth in concentration as her smooth knuckles move diligently, applying the lacquer to Hecate’s nails. She pulls back when she’s finished, capping the bottle and placing it on the table beside her.

“There we are! Now we match.” Pippa smiles, pleased with her handiwork, and without thinking tucks a kiss against the koi shaped birthmark on Hecate’s ankle. Hecate feels her whole world, and her heart, slowly turning pink.

* * *

The air is biting when Pippa lowers herself down from their window to the shingles beneath. Hecate is perched very close to the edge of the roof, her legs pulled tight against her chest and head buried against her knees. She looks exhausted. 

Pippa curses her own gullible mind for believing Hecate earlier when she claimed that she didn’t care about Yarrow and Juniper cornering her in the hallway. She’d refused to tell Pippa what they’d said, her face a mask of indifference, and told her to let it go.

“Go away.” Hecate’s voice is quiet and spindly, and it’s painfully obvious to Pippa that she has been crying. Probably for hours.

She ignores Hecate, creeping forward to sit behind her. She rests her chin on Hecate’s shoulder and wraps a pink clad arm around her lean waist. “They’re idiots,” Pippa proclaims, low and deadly, her free hand stroking the base of Hecate’s pale neck. “They’re jealous and spiteful harpies with so little brainpower between them that it’s shocking they manage to pass as living beings. You’re so much better than them.”

Hecate lets out a sad little laugh that Pippa knows will haunt her dreams. It may as well hold the tears of every tragedy the world has ever seen.

“You are, Hecate. You’re—” _Perfect. Everything. Mine,_ though that claws at Pippa in a way that churns her stomach. “Brilliant. And they don’t know what they’re missing.”

Hecate doesn’t reply for a long time, though her hand circles Pippa’s wrist and stays there. She releases a long, shaky breath that Pippa feels in her own wet throat. “I’m not… _cold,_ ” Hecate snuffles, the gravelly sound reverberating through her ribs and vibrating against Pippa. _Like a bullet that shreds through both of them._

“I know,” Pippa swears, her lips pressed against the silk fabric over Hecate’s shoulder blade. She repeats her words, rocking Hecate gently to time of a silent lullaby. “I know, I know, I know.”


	5. the white fire of the stars

Though it takes some doing, rusted iron frames stubborn in their ways, beds that sat feet apart for decades are eventually pushed together. Pippa insists that it makes more sense this way since they so often end up sharing, and Hecate doesn’t protest, though she grumbles endlessly when metal refuses to bend to her will. _Muscles and magic required in equal measure,_ apparently. _A load of tosh._

But all of that is forgotten, meaningless, now that Hecate sleeps facing Pippa, sharing her breaths, noticing the slight warmth of the air as it enters her own frigid lungs. Sometimes they neglect to use a warming spell and sit tightly together, surrendering to the chill of the tower and watching their exhales come out in white puffs that linger like chimney smoke.

One particularly stormy night, when the winds and lightning won’t relent, Hecate opens her eyes to find Pippa squeezing her knee so fiercely that it’s almost numb. The turret creaks and groans precariously, as if teetering. “I’m s-s-sorry,” Pippa splutters when she notices that Hecate is no longer asleep, tears large as pearls rolling down her cheeks. She bats at them frantically, her skin sore and swollen from the salt. “It’s just—so _loud_ and c-cloudy, too cloudy, and I can’t see the stars.”

“You’re safe. I’ve got you,” Hecate whispers, bending one arm around Pippa’s shoulders and one hand around her face, curling her against her chest. More practised at holding shadows, her grip is loose and uncertain, but she does her best to offer comfort.

“It’s not fair for it to take our stars,” Pippa sobs, clinging to Hecate, her tiny frame vibrating with anguish.

Magic, for Hecate, has always been a serious matter. A thing of consequence to be studied and honed, exercised only for practicality or great purpose. She has never been intentionally frivolous with her power, and definitely never wielded it for sentiment. 

But she wants, so badly, for Pippa’s happiness. Would drain the ocean, handful by handful, if it would keep her from sinking. Would sit proudly on a heap of whale bones and rotten wood and dead men, just to dangle a sunken jewel out for Pippa with water-wrinkled fingers, as if to say, ‘ _Here you are, look how precious. Look what I can save for you. Look what I can pluck from the ruins._ ’

So Hecate untangles her left hand and stretches her fingers in front of them. The candle stubs on the table extinguish and the fairy lights overhead go out, leaving the room in total darkness. Pippa squeaks, grasping at Hecate more firmly. Then, out of nowhere, tiny lights begin to cascade from the ceiling, sissonning and pirouetting like a ballet of fireflies as they take up their places.

Though she remains glued to Hecate, Pippa’s cries subside. She watches, transfixed, as the lights arrange themselves into ethereal constellations, until the whole of their night sky hangs above them. She scarcely recalls how to breathe.

It’s not bright enough to see Pippa’s face but Hecate hopes that the lack of noise means that she is less afraid. Distracted, at least. That in some small way, her meagre offering, maudlin as it is, might bring some solace.

“Hecate, how did you—I’ve never—” Pippa’s voice is raspy, leaving words to trail off and find storylines all of their own in Hecate’s mind. 

“It’s very simple really. _Silly,_ ” Hecate chides herself, glad that Pippa can’t see the unforgiving flush that overtakes her cheeks. The tips of her ears are burning. 

Pippa’s hand draws circles against Hecate’s kneecap, following the shelf of cartilage that she finds there. “It’s the most magical thing I’ve ever seen.” 

Hecate feels the weight of Pippa’s head dropping back against her clavicle and it takes everything inside her not to move away, because it’s too hazardous. _Too perfect._ The smell of nectarines and honeysuckle envelops her even as she tries desperately not to breathe against Pippa’s hair, though it’s futile. _Like freesias on a summer’s day._

“Even real stars are just balls of hydrogen collapsing under their own gravity. Hardly _magic_ at all.” The low cadence of Hecate’s mawkish reply does little to rattle Pippa’s wonder. Her gleaming joy. Something similar to the sweetest, stickiest cinder toffee swirls inside of her bloodstream.

“Just because that’s what they’re made of, doesn’t mean that’s what they _are._ ” There is a deeper meaning there, something that Hecate can’t quite discern but that she knows is important. “Besides, they’re pretty.”

The hand on her knee vanishes as Pippa begins to trace invisible lines over the stars above, following the stories of the sky.

“ _Pretty?_ ” Hecate frowns, her brows nearly meeting in the middle. 

“Yes. They’re…special.” Pippa’s heart thumps as she tries not to let her words get away from her. “They don’t bother about what anyone thinks of them. And yet there they are, bright and magical and just... _pretty._ ” _Like you._

Hecate is silent for a long time, so long that only the safe coil of her arms reassures Pippa that she is still there. The moon outside is slowly becoming clearer and Pippa can just make out Hecate’s eyes, regarding her with such devotion that her chest tightens and her palms feel clammy.

Before she can talk herself out of it, Hecate lifts an arched finger into the air and then beckons assertively. Like a loyal honeybee returning to its queen, one of the lights gradually drifts towards Hecate’s open hand. It pulses, dimming and brightening, adjusting to its new form. 

She holds it for a moment, amazed that her enchantment worked, cupping its soft weight and observing its smooth edges. _Not a bad effort, not bad at all._

Folding her legs beneath her, she gently takes Pippa’s hand, placing the star inside of it. “Here, Pip _squeak,_ ” Hecate whispers gingerly, winsome, her fingers awkwardly suspended a hair’s breadth away from the skin she has just touched. “It will always be there to light the darkness.” Something painful stings at her eyes, the serpent that sleeps uneasily inside of her hissing and writhing with every rise of her chest. _Even if I can’t. Even if I’m not._

Pippa heart hammers in her ears and she wonders if it’s possible to actually die from such all-consuming happiness. Such immense astonishment.

The star feels like glass in her palm, but softer, like heated sugar. As Pippa cradles it in her hands, reverently, knowing she is holding something sacred between them, she can hear arias in her head.

She looks at Hecate’s shadowy shape, its sleek lines half silhouetted against the darkness. Her skin is delicately pale, almost translucent in the moonlight, and Pippa has the faint sensation that nothing is solid, that everything might at any minute disappear into dust.

“I will treasure it always.” Her voice is thick with tears as she throws her arms around Hecate’s waist, burying her nose against her neck. Hecate does not reply, but she hugs back just as tightly.

Later that night, as they watch the remaining stars spinning around the room, Hecate absently strokes Pippa’s golden hair and tells her the story of the little bear, Ursa Minor, following his mother to the heavens. 

Folded against Pippa’s side, their toes brushing beneath the warm fabric of the covers, Hecate realises that she had been right. Something beyond comprehension, beyond reason, beyond _magic_ ripples under the surface, heady and sweet and real. It lodges inside of her, rooting itself in the gaps of her ribs, the wells of her collarbones, the spaces between her eyelashes. 

_Pippa Pentangle._

Lightning could have struck right there, igniting the bed like Dante’s inferno and sending the sheets shimmering into sparks between them, and still Hecate would not have moved an inch, content to watch the flames.


	6. through every window the sun

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Mary Oliver poem in this chapter is obviously written much later than the timeframe, but just suspend disbelief. ;)

Pippa finds, to her frustration, that it is very difficult to conjure a cupcake that tastes even remotely edible. She’s been practising for hours, trying to tweak the spell each time until it is perfect. The first three are complete write offs - too floury, too burnt, too bitter. As the process goes on, they become easier to chew without wincing, but that isn’t exactly the result she’s aiming for. _Fantastic._

Finally, after sixteen test runs, she has it just right. A recipe for success. 

When Hecate returns to their tower, swinging her satchel onto the hook by the door, she is stunned. Every surface above floor level in their room is covered in candles of all shapes and sizes. 

The smallest one of all sits on top of a single cupcake with plum coloured icing, which Pippa holds out to her on the flat of her hand. The blonde witch is swaying nervously from foot to foot, staring at Hecate with that half-moon smile that nearly undoes her.

“Happy birthday, Hecate,” Pippa beams, faltering forward, “make a wish.”

Hecate pulls at the hem of her sleeve, biting her lip as she moves towards the glow. She bends, just slightly, and blows out the flame. She doesn’t have a wish, but she gives thanks, and hopes that will suffice. A thin spiral of smoke floats up in its place. 

She stares silently at Pippa, glassy eyed, a lopsided smile tugging at her lips. 

Taking the cake from Pippa, she breaks it in half, sharing it between them before taking a bite. Pippa observes her anxiously, twiddling a loose thread on her shirt. 

“Does it taste okay?” 

Hecate licks her lips, savouring the sweetness of the icing. “It’s delicious. I didn't know you could bake.” Pippa’s grin looks like it might split her whole face in two. 

“Well, I’m full of surprises.” Pippa shrugs her face against her shoulder sheepishly, but she can’t stop smiling. 

“Speaking of which…” She turns and lifts a neatly wrapped package from the end of her bed. “Mother sent this for you. I told her that you’re not really big on gifts but she insisted.” Pippa rolls her eyes fondly, thinking of her mother.

Hecate’s brow furrows as she accepts the soft bundle. Sitting on the edge of the blanket, she tucks one leg beneath her, swinging the other as she unties the gold ribbon from around the present. When the layer of paper falls away, she sees a set of midnight blue pyjamas, silk, with a small periwinkle embroidered on the pocket. And her name. _Just like Pippa’s._

She hasn’t worn anything new in years, her own dull nightgown subject to more repair spells than a bar after happy hour and still relatively threadbare. She traces the letters over and over, committing the stitches to memory as if it’s the first time she’s ever seen her own name.

She doesn’t understand why Pippa’s mother, who has never met her, would bestow upon her such a kindness, can’t bear to ask, but she’s moved beyond words. Pippa drops beside her on the bed, placing a hand against her forearm. 

“I know you don’t like to celebrate, but I hope you don’t mind. That it’s not too much.” A sliver of worry darts across Pippa’s eyes and she’s suddenly nervous that perhaps she’s got this all wrong, that it’s too intrusive. _Too obvious._ She feels very exposed, ready to be cut down at any moment.

But Hecate reaches up and runs her finger across the edge of Pippa’s cheek, wiping away a daub of sticky purple frosting, and she looks at Pippa with so much adoration that she figures her brain might short circuit. “It’s not—too much. It’s perfect. Thank you, Pipsqueak.” A tiny smile ghosts across her face. “I will write to your mother tomorrow, to thank her, too.” She clutches the pyjamas against her chest like they are a miracle.

Pippa’s toothy grin grows impossibly wide as she tries to remember how to speak. When she finally does, it treads a fine line between passably coherent and outright off kilter. “She’d love that. And there’s just one more thing that I hope you’ll like.”

Standing up on slightly shaky legs, Pippa makes her way to the corner of the room where their little nest used to be. The mice left long ago, released back into the woods when they were big enough to find their own food, though Pippa always insists when they walk through the trees that she can hear Cully’s squeaks.

Hecate watches her back as Pippa crouches, moving aside some conspicuously placed boxes that she somehow failed to notice before. When she turns, rising to her feet, she’s carrying a black mass of fur and fuzz. She sets it down in Hecate’s lap carefully. 

“This is Morgana,” Pippa coos, running her hand across the small kitten’s ear. Miss Quince’s cat, apparently, had somehow conceived a litter in her one-hundred-and-fifth year of life, and after much pleading Pippa had convinced the cook to part with the runt.

Hecate’s mouth hangs wide and open as she nurses the tiny, purring being, smoothing her fingers across its flank. 

“You’ll catch bats,” Pippa laughs, winding her limbs around Hecate’s and pulling her snug against her side. Hecate fights back tears.

“Pippa, you shouldn’t have.” A noise escapes her that sounds suspiciously like a sniff, and her chin wobbles. Pippa squeezes her tighter, placing a kiss against the bridge of Hecate’s nose as she dips her face. Morgana curls between them, warm and alive.

“Happy birthday, darling,” Pippa whispers. She wonders how Hecate can be so infuriatingly dim about how treasured she is, how precious to Pippa, how worthy of so much more than she lets herself accept. 

Hecate’s chest aches with a happiness that she never once dared to dream of knowing.

That night, as they sit on the roof, Hecate decorates a canvas with thin strokes of amaranth and fuchsia, dotting the edges with flecks of gold. Pippa turns the page of her paperback, pressing her hand down the middle and ironing it out. 

“This poem is beautiful, Hecate. Can I read it to you?” Pippa’s question is tentative and delicate, but it’s filled to the brim with something unmistakably tender. Hecate lifts her eyes from her work, briefly, and gives a small, curt nod.

Pippa clears her throat, worrying her lip before she begins. Her voice rolls out like silk on the breeze.

_“Everything that was broken has  
forgotten its brokenness. I live  
now in a sky-house, through every  
window the sun. Also your presence.  
Our touching, our stories. Earthy  
and holy both. How can this be, but  
it is. Every day has something in  
it whose name is Forever.”_

When she lifts her gaze to Hecate, she finds that her hands have stilled, the brush hovering and dripping splotches of pink paint onto the paper. Hecate is looking at her with an unreadable expression, eyes dark and misty. 

She gasps slightly when she hears another droplet fall, quickly snapping her attention away as fumbling fingers blot at the stain. As if only just remembering that she can use magic, she waves a hand over her work and removes the offending marks.

She sets her sketchbook down to the side, taking far longer than necessary to do so, before finally meeting Pippa’s eyes once more. “You’re right,” Hecate whispers, after what seems like forever. “It is very beautiful.”

Pippa smiles, shifting closer so that she can rest her head against Hecate’s shoulder. She slips her hand into a much colder one and laces their fingers. “It just reminds me of _our_ very own sky-house.” Pippa’s knuckles twitch as she speaks, gesturing towards the window of their room behind them. She sounds vulnerable, somehow. Strangely unsure. “I love our little home.”

A breath catches in Hecate’s throat so suddenly that she nearly chokes on it. She doesn’t trust herself to look at Pippa in that moment, so overwhelmed that her fortress falls away and leaves her skin scratchy and raw.

Hecate has never had a home before. Not one that merited the true meaning of the word, at least. For the longest time, she had been content to pass almost invisible in the world without any magic required, walking through the woods late into the night, undetected and unobserved. She would rub wild rosemary between her fingertips and breathe it in, grounding herself to the earth. Part of her longs to go back to a time when she was unseen. _Vague and intangible, impervious as a stone._

But now she has Pippa. Pippa with her boiled sweets and sparkling eyes and maddening generosity and never-ending heart. Now, at night, she stays by Pippa’s side, their hands tangled and fingers twisted together, stroking palms and rubbing wrists in the dark. She listens to Pippa’s heartbeat as they fall asleep.

They have claimed a little space for each other and made it theirs, each sweeping and straining to clear away the cobwebs and ward against dangers. And being known, noticed, perhaps even _needed,_ just _maybe_ isn’t quite so bad after all.

“This is the best birthday I’ve ever had, Pipsqueak,” Hecate croaks, squeezing Pippa’s fingers tighter than she has ever dared to before. She stares up at the spaces between the stars where she’s committed Pippa to memory forever. Pays a thought to the canvas that lies at her feet: pink and gold and pink and pink. The colours of home.


	7. the deep breath of happiness

Their first real fight comes just before Yule, a silly quarrel about ball dresses that isn’t about ball dresses at all. Hecate hadn’t even wanted to attend the festivities in the first place but Pippa had been insistent, pursuing the point to the brink of madness until she’d reluctantly found herself agreeing. 

The banquet is too stuffy and too crowded. Hecate paces the slabs of the courtyard, dragging in as much air as she can, just outside of double doors that open to a room full of insipid small talk and waltzing bodies. It’s intolerable. Her mother’s silver gown sits awkwardly against her ribs, though she’d done her best to take it in. She feels terribly out of place. Unwanted. _Ridiculous._

Pippa appears next to her, placing a hand on her back gently and Hecate moves away, putting as much space between them as possible. Pippa frowns, brushing some imaginary thing from the sleeve of her golden dress as she takes a more calculated step towards Hecate.

“What’s the matter?” There’s a hint of hurt coating the concern in Pippa’s tone, but Hecate refuses to hear it. 

“Nothing. I simply grew tired of watching you flaunt yourself around, vying to be the centre of attention as usual.” The retort is more acidic than Hecate intended but she’s too riled to care. “As if it wasn't bad enough that you had to upstage me by turning up in gold when you knew that I’d chosen to wear silver.”

She instantly regrets her words when she sees the crestfallen look on Pippa’s face, eyes cloudy and pained, arms tightening around her middle.

Hecate doesn’t care about the dress. Only that Finch Ashbridge, the most sought after flyer from their rival school, had asked Pippa to dance. Never mind that she said no. Never mind that Pippa snorted, calling him a toad, and returned to Hecate with two glasses of elderflower punch. Had stayed by her side for the whole night, even when Marjorie invited her to a table where girls were weaving flowers through each other’s hair.

Hecate made her excuses and came to the garden to calm her nerves. She can’t get Finch’s grimy hands out of her mind, thoughts of him holding Pippa’s waist, close enough to smell the honeysuckle of her hair. Pippa is not _hers,_ can share her time and presence with whomever she wishes. She has no right to feel the slick curd of envy that she does not understand coursing through her.

Snapping back to the situation at hand, Hecate tiptoes forwards, coming to stand just in front of Pippa. She still looks desperately hurt, even as she juts her chin, her eyelids fighting to remain fixed as Hecate clasps her hand.

It begins to snow, though neither of them notices.

“I’m so sorry, Pipsqueak. I didn’t mean it.” Some Judas of a tear with an apparent death wish escapes Hecate’s own eyes. Her features are laden with remorse, sickening under the blackness of her emotions. The knowledge that she has hurt Pippa, can hurt Pippa, is nauseating. Her organs are flooded with something volcanic and odious. It’s getting harder to breathe.

“So you should be,” Pippa answers tartly, though her posture slackens and her fingers press back more firmly against Hecate’s. “You’re fortunate that I wasn’t still holding my punch or it would be all over you right now.”

Pippa’s cheeks flush slightly as the words leave her mouth. A picture creeps up on her of Hecate with liquid dripping down her face, wet silver clinging against her chest like the moonlight. She shivers.

“It’s freezing, we should go back inside,” Hecate suggests, affection and penitence melding in such a way that it nearly undoes Pippa.

She shakes her head. “No, I’d rather look at the stars.” _And you._ From inside, a soft melody spills out and Pippa steps back, finally rewarding Hecate with a sweet, shy smile.

Bunching the top of her skirt in her hands, Pippa slowly begins to twirl to the music. She hums along to the tune, shifting her weight effortlessly between her feet as she dips and spins. 

Hecate watches, entranced, as Pippa dances, elegant hips swaying back and forth. Her neck is poised and contentment shines across her lips. Every now and then, she drops the fabric of her dress in favour of catching snowflakes with her fingers.

Like a storybook princess. Like a star come to life. _Like Persephone, returning to Hades with fists full of light._

* * *

They speak no more of the ball, but Hecate must be forgiven because Pippa invites her to spend winter break at the Pentangles’. The house stands proudly on the Devonshire cliffs, overlooking the lazulite sea. Remnants of its life as a vicarage still cling on. Faces of carved stone cherubs watch from the trim around the roof and delicate Gothic arches are pinned against bricks of Cotswold stone.

They spend the first few hours of freedom jumping up and down to keep warm, jousting with icicles that melt as they laugh. Pippa with rosy red cheeks and bubblegum pink mittens is a sight that Hecate wants to capture in amber. Their lungs burn with cold, goosebumps peppering their skin, but it’s already the best holidays that Hecate has ever had. She feels the honey of it sinking low into her belly, warming her from the inside out despite the chill.

Pippa’s mother is just as Hecate imagined, only better. _Wonderful._ Elodie Pentangle is lithe and vibrant, filled to the brim with felicity. Her eyes, one hazel, one green, are cat-like and kind, and they don’t miss a trick.

She fawns over the girls, ever present, ever attentive, always making sure they have everything they need. “ _Here’s a jumper, it’s more bitter than you realise._ ” “ _Take the hamper, I’ve packed a few snacks to keep you going_.”

She teaches Hecate about baking, her sweet concoctions tempting to even the most savoury of palates. Caramel coloured hair flecked with blonde and copper hangs loose around her shoulders. 

“The secret is just a pinch of nutmeg, and then another sprinkling for good measure.” Pippa rolls her eyes at her mother, muttering under her breath about using magic until Elodie swats her on the shoulder.

“Roll your eyes at me again and I’ll make them stick like that,” Elodie warbles, stirring the batter with a flick of her hand.

Pippa smirks saucily, swiping her finger through the mixture and bringing it to her lips. Hecate nearly faints when she sees her tongue, pink and sharp, darting out to savour the sugary sludge. She releases it with a pop. 

“Well, that’ll show off the family resemblance even more,” Pippa grins, winking at Hecate who is torn between amusement and a strange, sick feeling. “Just need a few grey hairs and there’ll be no mistaking it.”

Elodie sticks out her hip, narrowing her eyes. She beckons Pippa towards her, and she obliges, strutting forward. A curled fist hovers in front of Pippa’s chin and for one, terrible second Hecate thinks that she’s going to hit her. 

Instead, Elodie dips her head, opening her hand and blowing icing sugar all over her unsuspecting daughter. “There we are. Problem solved.” She wipes her hand down the front of her apron and smiles victoriously, laugh lines spreading delicately at the corners of her eyes. 

Pippa folds her arms, pouting, and pushes a heavy exhale out from her lower lip to dislodge the powder from her nose. “Mother! I am going to get you back for that.”

Humphrey’s voice ricochets in from another room, scolding. “Pippa, stop tormenting your mother.” Hecate’s tongue sticks to the roof of her mouth, but Pippa giggles and he appears, sweeping her into his arms and spinning her around the kitchen. 

Hecate’s mouth opens and closes, trying desperately to understand why no one is angry, no one is pleading, no one is crying. It’s unfathomable, _isn’t it?_

A warm arm curls around her shoulder gently, and when she looks up Elodie’s eyes are pools of love. “How about we get these into cases ready for the oven?” She hands Hecate a scoop and taps her on the nose. “Humphrey’s got two left feet so watch out if they get too close.”

Her husband scoffs. “I’ll have you know I once danced with Ginger Rogers. I learnt some of my best moves from her.” Humphrey is good natured and quick, with a sweep of salt-and-pepper hair parted slightly to the side. Best of all, he has Pippa’s eyes.

“That’s true,” Elodie sighs, putting on her oven gloves and sliding in the tray. “If by Ginger Rogers, you mean your Aunt Angelica.” Hecate gulps so hard that she hiccups, clamping a hand over her mouth and blushing profusely. Tears stream from Pippa’s eyes as she laughs, hugging Hecate with all her might.

Humphrey’s deep, hearty chuckle permeates every surface in the house and surrounding area. 

Over the coming days, Hecate finds that Humphrey is unwaveringly jolly and he smells like Imperial Leather soap. His slightly ruddy cheeks redden further when he teases her about her unbeatable chess strategies, deeming her his most worthy opponent to date. There’s no hint of malice behind his words, and Hecate enjoys their matches tremendously. Enjoys being with the Pentangles, tremendously.

On afternoons when it’s too icy to go outside, she explores the house with Pippa. Hand in hand, they scurry through secret passage ways, tunnels of dust that twist and turn like the Minotaur’s labyrinth. It’s dingy, and musty, but with Pippa by her side, laughing, Hecate would be content to walk straight into the the depths of the underworld.

Humphrey is good enough to feign surprise each time they spring out to scare him, even though the doors’ hinges haven’t seen oil in centuries and scream like mandrake roots with the merest push. Juvenile, perhaps, for sixteen-year-olds, but less so when one of them never really had a childhood.

It’s all so easy, and comfortable, and joyous to Hecate. And if the Pentangles mind that she flinches on occasion, or retreats inwardly sometimes at the drop of a hat, they never show it. They are ever patient, ever generous. Ever _Pippa._

* * *

"I wanted to thank you, for having me.” Hecate shifts on her feet awkwardly as she presents Elodie with a bouquet - irises, with twigs of jasmine and witch hazel, woven together with strands of heather and holly. Prickly and perfect. 

She bows her head, toying with her lip as Elodie’s eyes meet the flowers. It seems silly, really, when many of the stems are from Elodie’s own garden, though Hecate had painstakingly healed the buds she’d taken. She’d added in others that she'd collected down by the beach as Pippa skimmed rocks at her side, toes crusted with sand. Did her best to make it as pretty as she could.

Elodie, simple as the gesture is, _minute,_ compared to what the Pentangles have done for Hecate, looks at her as though she might cry. Her breath hitches with each inhale but she stands incredibly still, the way picnickers cease their movements so as not to scare grazing doe. 

Finally, Elodie brings them to her nose and her eyes close, lines framing the edges of her mouth as she smiles.

“These are absolutely divine,” Elodie gushes, squeezing Hecate’s bicep softly. “Thank you. You are welcome here any time.” The smile does not leave her face for the rest of the day.

Hecate has no way of knowing it yet, but Elodie keeps the flowers long after they’ve wilted, long after the petals go limp and the leaves droop, curling in on themselves like sleeping swans. 

She enchants them back to life every year after their delivery, even when Hecate’s name is no longer spoken in the house, cherishing them, tending them, though they are never quite the same as that first, bright bunch, offered in earnest by a newly discovered miracle.


	8. it is heaven itself to take what is given

It seems to happen in slow motion. One minute Hecate is talking to Elodie after returning from a stroll on the beach, and in the next she catches a vase on the counter with the back of her hand. For one, stretched out second, Hecate watches the heirloom sway perilously before it plummets, missing the ornate rug and connecting with hardwood. A mosaic of broken shards slides across the floor.

Hecate’s mouth hangs in horror and a whimper leaves her throat. She pinches her eyes shut, trembling, nails scraping up the fabric of her sleeves until her bare arms are face up, extended towards Elodie. Her breaths come in short bursts and she winces, anticipating what’s to come.

Elodie takes one look at Hecate’s blemished forearms and catches her wrists, pulling her against her chest until she can wrap a secure arm around her, bringing her head to rest above her heart. She cradles her like a much smaller girl, combing fanned fingers through Hecate’s hair. “It’s okay, honey,” she whispers against the shell of Hecate’s ear. “It’s okay.”

Hecate is rigid, stricken, her frame quaking as she mumbles over and over, like a gut-wrenching prayer, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

Pippa is by their side within moments, trying to discern the situation as rapidly as she can. She glances between the fragments strewn across the wood and Hecate’s stiff, pained expression, her terror, and she quickly fills in the blanks. _Oh god, no._ She grabs Hecate’s hand, linking their fingers, and skims her thumb over the back of it. “I’m here, Hecate.”

“Hecate, sweetheart, it’s only a vase. Easily broken, easily mended. There’s nothing to be sorry for.” Pippa doesn’t recall her mother’s voice ever being more gentle and it coaxes tears from her eyes. Elodie’s magic sparks off to the side from her free hand, restoring the pottery instantly. “See, good as new.”

The proof is before her eyes and Elodie smells like homemade cinnamon buns and warm plum jam, but Hecate won’t stop, _can’t,_ shaking her head from side to side, fist balled so hard her nails must be cutting into her palm. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry."

“Hiccup,” Pippa says softly, searching Hecate’s face until dark eyes finally snap up, locking with her own. “It was just an accident. You didn’t do anything wrong.” Hecate’s erratic gulps begin to even out and the looping apology slowly fades from her lips. 

“I didn’t mean to do it,” Hecate manages, sagging, her voice so quiet and raw, so forlorn, that Pippa feels fire taking shape inside of her. As she contemplates her next words, pulse coursing hot with hate as she pictures Hecate’s father, Elodie finds her eyes and wordlessly lulls her away from the edge.

Elodie relaxes her hold, crouching down in front of Hecate and clasping her fist until it unfurls. “No, you didn’t.” Then, with such tenderness that Pippa feels her own heart brim over with love for her mother, Elodie lifts Hecate’s chin with the tap of a finger until she meets her gaze. “You’re always going to be safe with us, Hecate.”

It’s Hecate’s undoing. She finally lets out the sob that she’s been holding, maybe for decades, and flings forward, winding thin arms around Elodie’s neck until she’s crying against her shoulder. 

Elodie lifts an arm and then Pippa’s there, too, clinging to both of them, her tears wet against Hecate’s throat.

“ _Always._ You’re always going to be safe with us, Hiccup.”

* * *

On the eve of Yule, Hecate and Pippa sit bundled up in layers of thick wool and tartan. It’s a crisp, overcast night and the stars are so clear they appear more tangible than ever. The tree stumps that they perch on are carved with intricate letters and shapes, and must be charmed because they are far more comfortable than logic would suggest.

Elodie bustles back and forth handing round a flask of hot cocoa, cupping their cheeks as she whisks by to help Humphrey. He stokes a small, blazing fire that flickers with the colours of autumn leaves.

Hecate spares a glance in Pippa’s direction, catching her eye and smiling brightly. The air between them trails with cotton wool every time Pippa laughs, which is often, and Hecate wants to stuff her insides with with it, to stitch it in until she’s softer. _Soft enough for Pippa._ She sips her drink, relishing the slight burn of it against her throat.

Their Yule log waits patiently on the ground in front of them, proud, decked out in all its glory. It’s decorated with pine cones and feathers, with cinnamon sticks that poke out like thin beacons. Ribbons are bound loosely around the centre, ready to receive their wishes for the coming year. 

There’s a loud groan and then a string of curse words. Hecate flits her eyes to Humphrey. A bottle of ink, apparently summoned uncorked, lies sideways in his palm, its contents running down his sleeve. Pippa howls with laughter and Elodie tries unsuccessfully to smother her own giggles. 

“Oh, I suppose you think this is funny do you, Dee?” Humphrey catches her by the waist and strokes a very stained, very blue finger down the length of her nose.

“Well, _really,_ Humphrey,” she protests crossly, but she’s still grinning as she leans against his chest. “You might consider ensuring the lid is on next time.” Smiling fondly down at his wife, Humphrey steals a kiss from her lips.

“Get a room!” Pippa shakes her head at her parents’ antics, but Hecate can tell that she’s secretly happy because there's a sheen in her eyes and the corners of her lips twitch. A mittened hand covers her own gloved one and folds around it. 

Eventually cleaned up, Humphrey passes out freshly filled quills and paper. They sit in comfortable silence, weighing their wishes. Pippa scribbles steadily, her writing getting smaller and smaller as she tries to cram as many words as she can onto her sheet. Hecate imagines she is drawing tiny flowers above her ‘i’s. Trying to right all the world’s wrongs in one beautiful paragraph.

Hecate is at a loss for what to write. She’s never been good at wishing for anything. Disappointment is sure to follow any such exercise and she’s resigned herself against foolish hopes. _Most of them._ She can only think of one word that she might just be brave enough to wish for, so she jots down the truest one she knows.

After the scrolls are securely rolled up and fastened to the red ribbons, Humphrey carefully places the oak branch onto the fire and steps back. They sit for a while watching the flames crackle and pop, basking in the comforting glow.

Hecate’s eyes follow a thin trail of smoke rising skyward and fancies it is carrying her one little word up the heavens. 

_"This._ ”

* * *

Later that night, the sound of Holst fills the room as Humphrey’s fingers dance over well-worn piano keys. His whole body moves as he plays, back arching and shoulders following the rhythm seamlessly. Morgana dozes by the hearth beside a rather ragged looking Siamese, Sycorax, flicking her tail occasionally when she catches a mouse in her dream. It’s unspeakably peaceful.

Pippa and Elodie sit across from Hecate on the sofa. Her mother must say something amusing that Hecate doesn’t hear because suddenly Pippa is laughing and hugging Elodie thoroughly.

Hecate's spine stiffens, averting her gaze. She pictures the statue of her own mother that once stood in the garden of an austere house. How after her death Hecate had wrapped her arms tightly around its waist, trying in any way she could to be held. She wonders if that’s when she first began turning into stone.

The gears in her head must be whirring loudly because when she looks back up Elodie and Pippa are both regarding her with such kindness that Hecate has the urge to bolt. To evaporate into the ether like steam from a tea kettle. But the pegs Pippa has hammered into her heart are knocked in too tightly to take the tent down, so she pitches up with her instead. Meets their eyes.

Without saying a word, Pippa shuffles to the side and they both open their arms to her. Hecate’s pupils grow to the size of farthings. 

“No, it’s—I—” Her eyes are haunted, far off, but Pippa won’t let the waves take her.

“Come on, Hiccup, there’s plenty of room on the broom,” Pippa ventures, hopeful, light pouring from her smile.

Affection for affection’s sake is still foreign to her, though less so now that she has Pippa. _Her darling, beautiful, Pippa,_ whose eyes are twinkling like opals in the sunlight. For once, she lets her desire to be held overtake her fear of being let go.

She shuffles forward, closing the gap between the pair and allowing twin sets of arms to coil around her. Even though her shoulders remain solid, her feet awkwardly dangling to face each other, even though her back is ramrod straight, Hecate has never felt more like she belongs anywhere. Has never felt as invited, or welcomed, and certainly never as _wanted_ as she does in the dim light of the parlour.

Elodie presses a kiss against her brow, light as gossamer, and it’s so motherly and pure that Hecate feels her soul orbiting around the ceiling above her. 

Hecate knows there is still something feral inside her that can’t be named. Something wild, and untamed, lingering from raising herself, scrap by scrap, from the ruins of her childhood. Something with teeth and claws. _She knows this._

But though she feels more like a shadow in this portrait than a person, she finally understands what people mean when they say that family can be something you find. She wills herself to commit to memory this perfect moment, to tuck it away, to never lose the sensation of being part of something bigger, even if it can’t last.

“It’s snowing!” Pippa squeals, pointing to the window, dragging her by the arm to watch it fall in quiet surrender to the earth. It feels like Pippa’s icing sugar is tumbling down everywhere in this perfect snow-globe world. She wants to stay here, with the Pentangles and Pippa, in this very room and in front of this exact window, always.


	9. darkly gleaming cliffs of ice

The iceskating gala at Cackle’s is one of the most anticipated events of the year. Girls in their class have been talking about it for weeks, planning the participants’ costumes and routines. When they are asked to send out invitations to their parents, Hecate sees Juniper nudging Yarrow in the ribs, smirking in her direction. They know she will not write to her father, wouldn’t even dare to ask him. It stings, but she keeps her expression blank and tries to appear unfazed.

Pippa, to Hecate’s great embarrassment, must see as well. “I’ll be there, Hiccup. I promise.” She covers Hecate’s hand with her own, giving it a gentle squeeze under the table. “Team Hecate all the way.” Hecate bites her lip and nods, doing her best not to let her tears show.

The day drags its feet, but finally arrives. It brings with it a barrel of nerves that somersault in Hecate’s stomach, and a sense of loneliness that sits like black velvet against her ribs. She can hear the crowds milling outside the pavilion, lively and buzzing with excitement. Each voice is like a tiny dagger to the chest.

Her tights are gauzy and unnatural against her thin legs, but Miss Greyhorn had insisted that the girls wear traditional garb for the occasion. She feels ridiculous. As she ties her skates, double fastening the laces, a shadow falls over her.

She raises her eyes to see Yarrow, swaggering above her, ringlets bouncing in all directions. “Break a leg, _Dracula._ ” The grin Yarrow shoots her is menacing and she cackles cruelly, filling Hecate with dread that she might have something in store for her. “Or better yet, your neck.”

Hecate’s throat constricts. She tries not to think about the water that waits beneath the ice. No matter how well she knows it, the lake will not hesitate to drown her given half a chance. Trades only in gristle and marrow.

Her gut clenches as she turns her back on Yarrow, choosing to keep her darkest thoughts at bay. Today is not a time for worry or revenge. She cannot risk her magic flaring and derailing something that she’s worked so hard for. She will not let Yarrow steal it away.

Snatching up the final additions to her ensemble, she finishes braiding her hair and ties it off with a black ribbon. The outcome is marginally satisfying but does little to calm her thumping heart. Batting back the niggles of doubt, she holds her head high and walks out to take her position. 

Before she makes it to edge of the lake, Pippa appears in front of her, panting. “Sorry, I came to find you as quickly as I could but _someone_ kept badgering Miss Greyhorn to move our seats closer to the front and I was trying to stop World War Three from breaking out.”

Pippa tilts her head to the side, still breathing heavily, and offers Hecate a wide grin. She rests her hands against Hecate’s sternum, peering up at her through dark lashes with an unapologetically guilty expression.

“ _Someone?_ ” Hecate can barely form a coherent thought with the tips of Pippa’s fingers grazing her collarbone, but she does her best to follow.

“Don’t be mad.” Pippa chews her lip between her teeth and motions over Hecate’s shoulder to the stands a little way in the distance behind her. Hecate turns, and Pippa catches her as she stumbles backwards slightly, knocked off guard.

Elodie and Humphrey are seated in the front row, apparently bickering over something because Elodie’s arms are folded and she’s shaking her head at her husband. Eventually, Pippa catches Humphrey’s eye and they stand, waving at Hecate, faces bright and full of encouragement. 

Pippa must have mirrored them, Hecate realises, and the idea brings a lump to her throat. She waves back, unable to stop the smile that spreads across her lips.

A simpering voice captures her attention. “How much trouble am I in on a scale of one to ten?” Hecate swings back to face Pippa, who feigns remorse but appears altogether too pleased with herself. 

“ _Eleven._ ” Hecate doesn’t stop smiling. “Twelve if I round up.” 

Pippa laughs and laces her fingers through Hecate’s, bringing their joined hands to rest over her heart. “They wanted to come,” Pippa sighs happily, and Hecate’s bones ache with gratitude. “As soon as I told them you were competing, Mother wouldn't take no for an answer.”

“Really?” The question trickles out unfiltered before Hecate can stem it. 

“ _Really,_ more’s the pity.” With a tenderness that is almost too much to bear, Pippa lifts Hecate’s free hand and tangles its fingers between her own, before placing a warm, soft kiss on the knuckles just above her fingernails. “You’re going to be amazing.”

Miss Greyhorn blows her whistle just in time because Hecate nearly utters the unthinkable. She jolts back from Pippa, mumbling an apology and throwing a shy smile over her shoulder as she staggers off in the direction of the other skaters. Her skin tingles from the touch of Pippa’s lips, and if her grin borders on goofy, she’s too giddy to care.

Hecate is much more graceful on the ice than on the ground. Her lithe figure glides in intricate loops and concentric circles, her boots never faltering, planting with ease as she lands a particularly exacting jump.

As she completes her set, the loose material of her black skirt billows around her as she slides. Hecate imagines that she is a banshee caught by the wind as her mouth opens, gulping the cold air, and she laughs in relief when she finishes. An omen of death, saved by the iron in her own blood. 

She sees Pippa in the stands, on her feet, alternating between blowing kisses and clapping. Radiant as always. Elodie and Humphrey cheer beside her and happiness hangs in the air, silky and sweet.

Hecate does not win. For once in her life, Hecate places second and the shame blooms in her chest like a cut dripping into water. It’s bloody, and cloudy, and she tastes bile when she swallows. She dreads the disappointment and the pity from Pippa’s parents. The annoyance that they have come all this way for nothing. 

Her stomach churns inside her like a hexed spinning wheel as she makes her way to the refreshment tent. Changing back into her normal attire provided some comfort, but her panic mounts the closer she gets to her guests. Her feet are heavy and uncooperative. She clenches her teeth. Refuses to cry.

And then Pippa is in front of her, beaming and exultant. She hugs Hecate, her arms slinging around her neck unabashedly, uncaring of the words that Juniper is firing off from across the room. 

Hecate thinks of binary stars. How most come in pairs, orbiting a common centre of gravity. Travelling together through space and time. She fights to remain on her feet.

Pippa is bursting with joy, barely able to contain it. She presses a hard kiss against Hecate’s cheek. “You were magnificent, Hiccup.”

Before Hecate can gather herself enough to reply, Yarrow saunters over, clicking her tongue as she looks Hecate up and down. “Not bad for a first timer, I suppose,” she concedes under the watchful gaze of the other attendees. “Though as usual, not quite good enough.” The latter part is deliberately kept for Hecate’s ears only, but Humphrey must sense something is amiss as he draws closer.

He places his hands squarely on Hecate’s shoulders and squeezes gently. “Well met, Yarrow,” Humphrey states, although he does not bow or even gesture in lieu of one. Hecate steps out of his hold slightly as she turns to view him. His eyes are harder than she has ever seen before, suddenly so unlike Pippa’s, and Yarrow’s posture slumps. She mutters something noncommittal before skulking off to join her parents.

Having shaken the unwanted pest, Humphrey gives Hecate a low bow. “That was quite the performance, Hecate.” The sparkle has returned to his eyes and everything is alright again. She takes a sip from the goblet that Pippa hands her. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen Pippa’s jaw so close to the floor.”

Hecate chokes, spitting out her drink. Thankfully, most of it lands back in the cup. Humphrey offers her his handkerchief and she dabs at her chin to mop up the rest.

Pippa’s cheeks are scarlet, though she doesn't deny his comment. She stamps her foot, giving her father a light shove and narrowing her eyes. “Daddy, _must_ you be so _embarrassing?_ ” 

“It’s my job, I’m afraid.” He shrugs, popping a peppermint into his mouth. “Contractual obligation.”

Elodie finally manifests, looking a little frazzled but spellbinding nonetheless. She’s dressed in a tailored Chanel skirt suit, with a high collar and thick gold buttons. It pairs rather hilariously with the streak of chocolate on her cheek.

“There you are, Dee. I thought you’d got lost,” Humphrey grins, removing the substance with his thumb.

“Well thank you _ever so much_ for coming to check,” she retorts, her nostrils flaring. Noticing the girls, who are doing their utmost to remain straight faced, she softens.

“Word of advice, my loves: never wear heels. Miss Wyndham clipped me from behind when I was skewering a strawberry and next thing I know I’m face first in the chocolate fountain.” _Yes, she’s definitely Pippa’s mother._ Elodie laughs, shooting her husband a warning glance. “Don’t even think about remarking on how that sounds, Humphrey.”

Pippa shakes her head in despair. She nudges Hecate with her hip, wrinkling her nose. “If you want to share these two idiots, you can.”

Hearing Pippa’s voice, Elodie seems to remember why she is there. She pecks her husband on the jaw and moves to stand in front of Hecate. 

“Oh, Hecate, honey.” She clicks her fingers, summoning a garland of intricately woven calla lilies and hanging them around Hecate’s neck. Tears well in her eyes. “You did so well, sweetheart. We’re so _very_ proud.” Elodie tilts Hecate’s chin up with her finger, winking at her.

Hecate feels like the floor is bottoming out from beneath her, but Pippa’s arm circles her waist, holding her steady. Nothing, not Yarrow’s piercing glare or Juniper’s acidic taunts, can dull the splendour of this moment for her. Can make her feel less euphoric. If this is what having humiliating parents feels like, she’ll take it.

“Girls, how about we go and find ourselves some ginger ale and pumpkin pie from somewhere other than Rudge’s ghastly kitchen?” Elodie wraps an arm around each of their shoulders and leads the way.

They are the girls. A single entity, wound together. Bound by Clotho’s thread and beautifully intertwined.

It shimmers like a dream.


	10. the scars of damage

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is the most upsetting/angsty in the whole fic as it features some extreme bullying. It was very difficult for me to write but it's formative to Hecate's experience so crucial to the storyline. There are still a few more rocky moments to come in terms of their relationship, but nothing as intense as this mentally. Just wanted to give a heads up.

It’s late. Far, far too late for anyone to be outside of the dormitories. The moon is low in the sky, casting unforgiving shadows from every object in its path. This clearing in the woods is usually witness to only the owls and the foxes, but tonight it learns the true meaning of darkness.

It begins, as things so often do, with a silly game. Or at least the kind of game that someone like Yarrow considers silly. _A harmless prank._ She wants to teach that smug little lesbian a lesson. No one crosses her and gets away with it, no matter how clever they think they are. 

She knows Hecate keeps that wretched hairball in her room. It’s easy enough to unlatch the window and lure it out, and then it’s just a waiting game for the stupid girl to come looking. She just wants to frighten her a little, show her what she’s up against.

And perhaps that’s how it starts, but Yarrow is way past that now. Past that about fifteen stops ago.

Hecate hangs limply in the middle of the trees, suspended from the ground by webs of brambles that snare her ankles and wrists. Some of the other girls Yarrow managed to round up have fallen back, petrified, coming to their senses. They are looking between each other for someone to speak up, though no one dares to challenge her. The potential outcome stares them in the face.

Yarrow is bordered by Juniper and another girl that Hecate does not recognise. They are helping Yarrow maintain the spell. Hecate’s magic is too powerful for her to be subdued by Yarrow’s alone, though the latter would die before admitting it.

“Been reading a lot of Sappho lately? You’re a disgusting abomination of a witch.” Yarrow sneers at her, her twisting mouth open like a wound. She spits at Hecate, hissing and laughing.

Hecate struggles against the ropes, trying with all of her might to break free of their hold, but she’s not strong enough. Every time she tries to use it, her magic dies on her fingertips. Her forehead beads with sweat, disorderly strands of curls clumping against her pale skin. Not for the first time, Hecate desperately, desperately wishes to be anyone else other than who she is.

“Yarrow, _please,_ ” she begs, her voice a sound she doesn’t even register as her own. She’s fighting tears with every ounce of willpower she possesses but she’s close to breaking.

“Pippa’s not a freak like you. You’re too selfish to see how much better off she’d be without your godforsaken presence glued to her side like some sick parasite. You’re ruining her like you ruin everything,” Yarrow barks, and each word cuts deep into Hecate’s soul, because they’re true.

The barbs twist sharper against her flesh the more she strains against them. Her legs are starting to cramp and pins and needles hum through her arms. 

“We can do this the easy way or the hard way.” Yarrow’s impatience is growing and she’s becoming more unhinged with every second that Hecate seemingly fails to give her what she wants. But Hecate doesn’t know what she wants. Can’t work out how to make it stop hurting. 

She tries to leave her body. To think of late nights on the Pentangles’ roof, tucked away from the world with Pippa by her side. She tries to remember her mother’s voice, Pippa’s voice, Elodie’s voice, but the pain is searing and she can’t get a grip on any thoughts at all. The vines wind tighter.

“Yarrow, she’s bleeding,” Juliet cautions, the plead in her tone sneaking through. Any sign of weakness is sure to be used against her but there’s a line, and Yarrow has crossed it to such a degree that she can no longer watch from the sidelines.  


Far from having their intended effect, the words seem to thrill Yarrow. “Well, what do you know? It seems that claims of the ice in her veins have been greatly exaggerated.” She shoots daggers at Juliet, flicking her fingers in a pointed way that cannot be mistaken for anything other than a dismissal. Turning her attention back to Hecate, she crosses her arms and smirks. “And here I was thinking you were practically dead already.”

Like a nest of disturbed snakes, the thorns spread their reach, twining higher and faster around Hecate’s neck. The more she panics, the more they coil, but Hecate is frantic, snatching ragged breaths and succumbing to her tears. There's no escape.

“No! Yarrow, _please,_ I’ll do anything— _anything,_ I—” The words die in her throat as her world spins, her mind reeling from the sensation of the briars squeezing her pulse point. _Like a rope of hair._

“What’s the matter, _Dracula?_ Do you think I’ll strangle you?” Yarrow sniggers, dark and deadly, as Hecate’s pleas reach a fever pitch. “Afraid you’re going to end up like your mother?”

The girl Hecate doesn’t know drops back, lowering her arms, and she must have been the one controlling Hecate’s wrists because the vines slacken enough for Hecate to clutch at her throat weakly. She can see lights dancing behind her eyes as she fights for air.

Yarrow tautens the brambles one last time before Hecate shrieks, an unholy cacophony of helpless cries spiralling from her mouth as her nails tear at her own skin, leaving bright red scratches. She’s begging and begging, making promises that she has no way of keeping. When nothing stops, she pinches her eyes tight and lets go, giving in to the blackness that lurks at the back of her skull.

And then there’s snapping noises and voices whispering in hurried tones and the most beautiful sound Hecate has ever heard rings through the trees.

“Get off me,” Pippa yells, sprinting, pushing through the huddle of other witches with such force that one of them hits the ground. Her hair is damp and curls wildly against her temples as she viciously bends back the fingers of someone who tries to stop her. 

She finally sees Hecate’s misshapen body, contorting and writhing against her shackles. The grotesque arch of her spine makes Pippa's skin prickle. Everything goes quiet except for the beating of her own heart in her ears. Hecate’s nose is running, hair matted against her sticky cheeks, and blood is starting to rust around the tracks of the thorns. 

“Get away from her!” Pippa’s voice is cold and stiff, exuding venom with every syllable. She collides with Yarrow, tackling her to the floor, pinning her to the grass beneath with a hand at the base of her neck. “Let her go. _Now._ ”

Yarrow smiles, with razors hidden behind her teeth. “Spoilsport.” She waves her hand flippantly and the briars vanish. Hecate drops to the ground with a horrifying thump, a puddle of awkwardly angled limbs draping across the leaves. She goes nauseatingly silent in a way that is so loud it could shatter glass.

Hecate is motionless on her side, knees clutched tightly against her chest as she tries in vain to shrink away, to be invisible. Her eyes are red rimmed and blank. Black hair spreads out around her like an overturned cauldron of tar. She looks like a paper doll waiting for a match.

Pippa clambers up, releasing her hold on Yarrow and rushing to Hecate’s side. She wraps her arms around as much of the small, curled lump as she can reach, encasing her, trying to express without words that she’s here, _she’s here,_ and Hecate is safe, protected, won’t ever be hurt again. 

Hecate’s cheeks are wet and raw and her brow is caked in mud. Their tears mingle as Pippa’s pour from her eyes, dripping onto Hecate’s skin as she gathers her closer and closer.

Someone laughs behind Pippa and it stirs something primal and molten inside her gut. She feels the magic beginning to pulse, earthy and dark at her fingertips.

“We were only trying to scare her.” Juniper’s quip is as callous as it is untrue, and it takes everything in Pippa not to rear up. Not to grab Juniper by the windpipe and press down until she gets a taste of her own medicine.

She doesn’t respond, pretends not to even hear them as she brushes a palm against Hecate’s clammy forehead. “Hiccup, it’s me. It’s Pipsqueak. You’re safe now, I swear it.” 

Hecate stirs, hiding her face against Pippa’s neck. She tries to collect her thoughts, to breathe deeply against the searing pain that has laid claim to her body, but it’s a losing battle. The bitter taste in her mouth makes her dizzy and she feels desolate. Utterly adrift. 

“I’m here, Hecate. I know it hurts, my darling, but I promise that you’re safe. Just listen to my voice.” A branch cracks behind her and Pippa stiffens, swinging her body round sharply. She shields Hecate with her arms, warning everyone to stay back, to give her space. Her jaw is tight and fixed, chest puffing as a tirade against the culprits and the onlookers builds inside of her.

“Is she—is she okay?” Juliet whispers, mistakenly taking a step towards them. Magic sparks at her feet as Pippa raises her hand and Juliet trips backwards, landing with a thud.

“ _No._ No she is not _okay,_ ” Pippa seethes, her words forbidding and sinister even through crying. “What is wrong with you? You wicked, _vile_ creatures. I _hate_ you.” She swipes at her tears with the back of her hand.

Yarrow raises her eyebrows, looking down at her nails and picking at them. “Pip, sweetie, you’re being rather hysterical. Admittedly, things went a little far—”

“ _A little far?_ ” Pippa lets out a strange, shaky sob that leeches disdain. “You strung her up like a marionette and tortured her, and you think that’s _a little far?_ ” Hecate manages to heave her torso upright and she presses her front against Pippa’s back. She places a weak hand on her arm, trying to calm her.

“Oh, please, spare me the dramatics. It’s not as if she didn’t deserve it, the way she swans around like some pathetic—”

“Get out of my sight, Yarrow Cornish! Get out of my sight this bloody instant or I will curse everything you hold dear, do you understand me?” The tendons in Pippa’s neck are straining against her skin. “I will kill you with my bare hands, don’t think for a second that I won’t.”

Pippa's eyes are darker than a moonless sky. She is so incensed and furious that her skin is hot the touch as Hecate grasps her wrist, trying to restrain her. 

“Whatever,” Yarrow mutters, half turning on her heel before throwing one final, gloating glare in Hecate’s direction. “Come along, girls. Show’s over. Let’s leave the little mongrel to lick her wounds.”

With that, the group disperses until only Hecate and Pippa remain in the clearing. There’s an acrid burning smell in the air and a static charge lingers between them. Hecate can almost see the tension that ripples from Pippa’s body.

Every muscle Hecate possesses is spent from exertion and her throat feels like she’s swallowed bowlfuls of coal. Her voice is willowy and stunted when she works up enough strength to speak. “Are you alright, Pipsqueak?”

Pippa’s shoulders finally slump as she rotates to meet Hecate’s concerned gaze. She lets out a distorted, high-pitched laugh that sounds all wrong. Hecate’s heart plummets.

“Of course you would ask me that when you’re sitting here like a crime scene.” She might be aiming for humour, but Hecate can feel her trembling.

“Pippa—”

Pippa whimpers, folding Hecate into her arms and cradling her with so much tenderness that Hecate feels tears forming for whole new reasons.

“I’m so sorry, Hiccup.” Hecate is stunned by the self-loathing she hears in Pippa’s voice.

“None of this is your fault, Pippa,” she whispers, running her hands over Pippa’s back and stroking as softly as she can.

“Isn’t it?” Pippa’s tears soak the collar of Hecate’s dress. Her words are punctuated with heartbreaking cries. “I didn’t get here quickly enough. I found Morgana over by the herb garden and I took her back to our room. And then I heard—I can’t explain it but I heard you calling me in my mind and I knew something was wrong. But I couldn’t _find_ you anywhere and I—”

Hecate places a hand over Pippa’s mouth, silencing her. “You got here as soon as you could, Pipsqueak. And you saved me. You’re the best friend in the world.”

It still hurts to speak, but it’s worth it when she sees Pippa’s blinding smile. She doesn’t want the moment to end but her wrist throbs and she winces, hissing at the sharp pain.

Wiping her tears, Pippa takes her hand and moves as if readying to stand. “We need to go to the infirmary.”

“No,” Hecate implores, tugging at Pippa. “Please. I don’t want them poking and prodding and staring. I can’t bear it.”

Pippa snags her lip between her teeth and the unbitten half fattens at the side. “The wounds will get infected if you don’t heal them.”

“I know. I just—can’t you do it?” Pippa’s eyes glisten at Hecate’s earnest request.

She caresses Hecate’s cheek with her thumb, tipping her head. “I won't be able to heal them as well as they can. There will still be marks.” 

Hecate issues something between a snort and a derisive sob. “I don’t care. At least they’ll have plenty of company.”

A violent crack of grief corkscrews through Pippa’s chest and she bites her tongue to stop from gagging. 

She knows exactly what it is that Hecate doesn’t want anyone else to see. Knows that beneath Hecate’s starched sleeves are deeper lesions, some parting gifts left by Hecate’s father before he left her on the school steps half a year too early. Pippa never knew true hatred before the night when she rolled back her cuffs to show her secret to the only person who ever cared to ask. Uneven burns and jagged gashes. _Her ugliness,_ she had said.

Pippa had run her fingers over each mark, hoping her simple touches might convey what she couldn't in words. That Hecate is so beautiful she wants to take each of her scarred edges and press them deliriously against her own skin. That every inch of Hecate’s body is hallowed ground.

Hecate has never once asked her for anything. That she trusts her with such a task stretches Pippa’s heart to a size she never believed possible. Pippa cups her face, pressing their foreheads together and closing her eyes.

“Okay, Hiccup, but not here.” Releasing her hold, Pippa scrambles to her feet. She encourages Hecate to grip her biceps as she places her hands under her arms and carefully helps her to stand. With Pippa bearing her weight, they take one last look at the inky sky before hobbling back to the turret. It’s a painfully slow climb up the steps but neither is in any condition to attempt transference. 

Back in the safety of their room, an uneasy silence settles between them. The crushing weight of the night’s events fall like a fog over Hecate. It’s suddenly all very real. _Undeniable._

Pippa sets to work, frantic and insistent, checking over every pore of Hecate’s body to assess the extent of her injuries. Tears sting at her eyes in a blur of anger and sorrow. Despite the warming spell that she’s cast, goosebumps sweep across Pippa's flesh. 

Morgana curls against Hecate’s side as she lies on the bed, her face devoid of all expression. She stays deathly still.

Pippa takes her time letting her magic sink beneath Hecate’s skin, healing the welts left by the thorns and the claw marks from Hecate’s nails as best she can. These wounds might heal, but she knows the ones in Hecate’s mind will be far harder to repair. She feels immeasurably helpless, like she’s turned up after a hurricane with a dustpan and brush.

When she’s certain that no more can be done, Pippa curls the ends of Hecate’s hair between her fingers. “What did they say to you, Hecate?” 

But Hecate doesn’t answer, won’t speak, can hardly breathe. Just about manages to shake her head as she opens her mouth wordlessly, brows knotting together. Wasps sting at her insides, leaving her stomach swollen and painful. There’s an emptiness in her eyes. Dead eyes.

Pippa knows better than to probe further. Instead, she tucks a gentle kiss against Hecate’s ankle, then one against her wrist. Crawling onto the bed beside her, she loops an arm around Hecate’s middle and presses one last, devout kiss to the hollow of her throat. 

Like a vase hitting mahogany or a statue striking cobbles, Hecate shatters. It’s all Pippa can do to gather her closer as Hecate cries and cries and cries for what she is, and what she isn’t, and what she can never be. She rests her hands over Hecate’s keen shoulder blades and rocks her, whispering as many words of comfort as she can against her ear. 

Gradually, acute, howling sobs taper off into even inhales and soft puffs. Pippa alternates between rubbing the pebbles of Hecate’s spine and drawing hearts and butterflies with her nails along her back. After what seems like an eternity, Hecate opens her eyes and they are clear. Scrubbed clean of any torment. 

An arm winds around Pippa and slender fingers mould against the dip of her waist. “Thank you, Pipsqueak.”

They are nose to nose and Pippa’s breath hitches as a wispy half-smile lights up Hecate’s whole face. _God, she’s gorgeous._ She longs to know what that smile tastes like smudged against her own mouth. Heat spreads low through her belly, scorching and overpowering.

But then Hecate rolls onto her back, staring up at the ceiling, and the trance is broken. Beside her, Pippa hums sweetly, raising her hand and swirling it above them. There’s a flash of orange, and then tiny, iridescent hummingbirds dance through the room, glittering and shining as they dive and soar.

Pippa slips her hand into Hecate’s as they watch the birds flying overhead. Huddled in their sanctuary, shrouded by a canopy of light, it’s easy to forget that anything beyond this moment exists.

Hecate rests her head against Pippa’s shoulder, breathes in the familiar scent of woodbine, and feels safe at last.


	11. to hold us in the great hands of light

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is one of my favourite comfort chapters! I hope that you like it. :)

The following afternoon, Hecate and Pippa sit outside the door to Mistress Hazelgrove’s office in what can only be described as the most uncomfortable chairs ever constructed. The padding in the measly excuse for cushions is worn to the point of extinction. Their patterned fabric might originally have been a pleasant colour, but now falls somewhere between dijon mustard and a dull, jaundiced chartreuse. 

The furniture, however, is not the worst part of the ordeal. A palpable silence coats the space between the girls and it’s borderline intolerable for Pippa. The reason for their summons to see the headmistress may not have been specified but it doesn’t take a genius to put the pieces together. Its delivery during lunch went over like a kicked ladder. Hecate’s expression had soured as she set down her fork and she hasn’t said a word since.

News has already spread among the students that Yarrow has been expelled and two other girls have been suspended for last night’s events. Hecate, though quietly relieved, is mortified. She shrinks away from the attention as much as she can but the false sympathy and prying eyes are hard to shake off. She feels like an ant under a magnifying glass, praying for a ray of sunlight to hit at just the right angle.

Eventually, it’s more than Pippa can take. “I didn’t tell anyone. I promise,” Pippa offers meekly, but Hecate still refuses to look at her.

Growing desperate, Pippa tries again, her voice cracking as she speaks. “Hiccup, I would never betray your trust. You have to believe me.” Hecate glances at her out of the corner of her eye. Pippa looks dejected, hurt, as she stares down at her knuckles in her lap.

Hecate knows, _really_ , that Pippa is telling the truth. Has known all along, deep down, that this isn’t her doing. Pippa has never given her any reason to doubt her loyalty, never once broken her confidence. She trusts her more deeply than anyone else in the world. It’s only reflex that spurs Hecate to shut her out, and that’s not fair to her at all. 

“I believe you.” Hecate reaches for her hand and threads their fingers together, hoping Pippa registers the unspoken apology. She’s rewarded with a slow smile that tugs at Pippa’s lips, so it seems that she does. 

Their hands are jostled by the frenetic jiggling of Pippa’s knee, though they remain clasped. She’s prone to fidgeting at the best of times but her nerves are clearly striking with a vengeance. Hecate gently stills the movement with her free hand, trying to soothe her.

“It’s probably about what I did this morning in Potions.” A shadow of guilt crosses Pippa’s face, though she does not appear remotely contrite. There’s an undercurrent of satisfaction in her comment that is hard to miss. 

“You shouldn’t have done it, Pipsqueak. Yarrow isn’t worth the trouble,” Hecate chides, scratching her nails over the inside of Pippa’s palm.

Pippa pops the bubblegum she’s been chewing and shrugs, gracing Hecate with a little wink.

“Oh well.” She sighs dramatically, slouching back in her seat. “I just wish that old slug hadn’t pulled us out of lunch just as pudding arrived. I was looking forward to my apricot tart.” She blows a strand of hair out of her face before pouting. 

“I’m glad to hear you’re thinking of your stomach when we’re probably about to get turned into frogs.” Pippa’s mouth twitches at Hecate’s light humour and she grips her hand more firmly. 

“I think it’s allowed if I only have a diet of flies to look forward to from now on, don’t you?” It comes as a surprise to both girls when Hecate snorts. 

There’s little time to think on it, however, because something else seizes their attention. They glance at each other, wide eyed, as the muffled conversation that until now has only been faintly detectable from inside of the office splinters through the wooden door.

“Pippa will _not_ be receiving any form of punishment for responding to a reprehensible situation which your pitiful staff failed to prevent.” 

Pippa’s jaw drops like a loose latch. Her mother’s furious voice is unmistakable. Hecate’s throat goes dry and she covers her hand over her mouth to steady her breaths. 

Mistress Hazelgrove is apparently equally heated. “Hecate did not report the incident or I assure you that we would have dealt with this matter much more swiftly. And in a much more suitable way, may I add.”

Hecate thinks she might be sick. At the very least, there’s a high chance that she’s going to cry.

“ _No,_ you may not. How you so negligently made it possible for a band of girls to gather out of hours in the woods in the first place is quite frankly beyond me.” They register the sound of heels clicking across the floor, coming to an abrupt halt as hands slam against wood. “And that you allowed dark magic to be performed on the premises undetected, with no safeguards in place to alert you to its presence, is not only woefully reckless but _exorbitantly_ unacceptable.”

They can’t make out Mistress Hazelgrove’s reply, but Elodie is nowhere near finished. If Hecate had thought that Pippa was a force to be reckoned with, Elodie is something else entirely. They can practically hear her grating her teeth through the door.

“Uh oh, poor Mistress Hazelgrove,” Pippa whispers, almost giggling. “Sounds like she might be at risk of a poisoned apple. Or a scenic little trip to the stake.”

“ _That girl_ flouted every rule of the Code. I will not sit idly by as you dare to suggest that my daughter will be placed in a month’s detention for some trivial stunt that is considerably lacklustre compared to what I would like to do. I am proud of Pippa. I’m only sorry that I wasn't there to see it.”

Evidently, Elodie still has no interest in stopping to let Mistress Hazelgrove respond. If her tone is anything to go by, it’s for the best that she’s met with no interruption.

“And let me be crystal clear. If you think for one _instant_ that I will hesitate to have this dire excuse of an establishment torn to the ground if anyone lays a hand on _my child_ again under your watch, you are sorely mistaken.” Her voice has dropped an octave and it would send a shiver down Hecate’s spine if she didn’t know Elodie better.

“As far as I am aware, Pippa was not—”

“I am referring, _you dimwitted crow,_ to Hecate.”

Hecate’s heart backflips in her chest. She lets out a peculiar gasp, as if suddenly unable to swallow air. Pippa mouths something to her but she’s too lightheaded to make it out. Perhaps she heard her wrong, that’s the only explanation. Yet somehow, she doesn't think that's the case at all.

“I don’t believe that Hecate is any of your conc—”

“Hecate Hardbroom _is_ my bloody concern. And the fact that I had to hear about this whole affair from Juliet’s mother is an absolute disgrace.”

So it had been Juliet who came clean about last night. The knowledge surprises Hecate less than she expects. Juliet, after all, had tried to call Yarrow off. She blanches, ashamed that she had even entertained the idea that it was Pippa, no matter how brief the thought.

“I’m sorry, Elodie. I didn't realise the extent of your care for Hecate.”

“It is Dr. Pentangle. And of course you didn’t. Your complete inability to keep track of anything pertaining to your students is painfully apparent.” Her words are stony and severe, leaving no room for debate.

There's a mumbled response from Mistress Hazelgrove that is too quiet to detect. 

“Gripping as this little exchange is, I would very much like to see my girls immediately. They will both be returning with me for the rest of the week. I trust that will be enough time for you to revise your safety practices thoroughly. Do not try my patience or you will hear from my husband, and I can promise you that he has far more to say on this subject than I do. I’m simply here in his place to ensure that your head stays on your body long enough to implement the necessary changes. Admit them at once.”

After a few seconds, the door creaks open and Mistress Hazelgrove’s scratchy, slightly ragged voice calls them inside.

Pippa and Hecate tread slowly into the room. Its walls are lined with tomes of all shapes and sizes, crammed into slanting bookshelves that seem awfully precarious. There’s a base scent of sawdust and musk that must originate from the books, although it’s mixed with a strong smell of gardenias and jasmine. 

Elodie is standing with both hands firmly planted and splayed out on Mistress Hazelgrove’s desk. She’s leant towards the headmistress in heels taller than redwood trees. Her hair is pulled back into an elegant french twist that looks like swirled caramel. Pippa has never, ever been scared of her mother, but she can’t deny that she’s incredibly intimidating in that moment, with her back arched like a cat’s, ready to pounce.

Mistress Hazelgrove is trapped behind her desk, blushing to the roots of her hair. She seems so rattled that Hecate almost feels sorry for her. She’s unbuttoned her collar and is clearly fighting hard to maintain a shred of dignity.

“Mother?” At the sound of Pippa’s voice, Elodie spins, bracing herself against the table behind her with white knuckles. For a second, the mask of expertly honed rigour remains fixed on her face, but it slips as soon as she sees the girls, _intact,_ observing her sheepishly from across the room.

Any remnants of anger dissipate and she buckles, her perfect composure giving way to unguarded relief.

Leveraging her weight, Elodie propels forwards, rushing over and coming to a halt just in front of Pippa.

“Sweetheart,” she gushes, love radiating from every letter. She frames Pippa’s face with her hands and bends to seal a bruising kiss against her forehead. “My brave little witch. Whatever am I going to do with you?”

Elodie chuckles, swatting at her eyes, before embracing her daughter fully. She kisses Pippa again, breathing against her hairline and letting the familiar scent calm her nerves. 

Hecate stands awkwardly, wringing her hands, though she smiles at their interaction. She studies the way Elodie’s elbows poke out, like protective wings circling a baby bird.

“I’m sorry if I worried you,” Pippa says honestly, the hint of a frown sliding across her brow.

“Oh, you are in a whole _world_ of trouble, Pippa Pentangle,” Elodie mutters with a worthy attempt at sternness, though she breaks into a lovely peal of laughter that lodges behind Hecate’s ribs. She pats Pippa’s cheek fondly. “I shall have to see to it that you have at least three helpings of dessert tonight.”

Pippa grins, though it disappears from her face as she remembers what brought them there. Her fists ball at her sides and she juts her chin out, glaring at Mistress Hazelgrove before once again meeting her mother’s eyes. “Yarrow deserved it. She deserved it and _more_ for what she did to Hecate.”

Upon hearing Hecate’s name, Elodie’s warm complexion pales. She releases her hold on Pippa and turns to look at Hecate, who shifts on her toes, staring intently at the ground. There’s a keening wail and then a blur of cream fabric as Elodie engulfs her. They sway slightly from the impact.

The gentle pressure of Elodie’s arms surrounding her is like being under a soft blanket with sunlight peeking in from the windows. Hecate sinks into it despite the nagging thoughts that warn her against such a display of affection in Mistress Hazelgrove’s office. _Or at all._

“Oh, _Hecate,_ honey,” Elodie murmurs softly, regret flooding her voice in a way that Hecate does not understand. She seems unsteady on her feet and Hecate can feel her shivering. 

“I’m okay, Elodie,” she croaks, forcing back a wave of tears. Apparently it’s exactly the wrong thing to say because Elodie immediately begins to cry. It’s faint at first and then it’s like a riverbank collapsing. 

Hecate has no idea what to do. Feels utterly useless. Wanting to reassure her, Hecate winds her thin arms around Elodie in return. She's ashamed that her bony frame can’t offer much in the way of comfort, but she embraces Elodie as kindly as she is able. 

Guilt licks inside of Hecate at the sight of Elodie’s wet cheeks. This is _her_ fault. _God,_ if she wasn’t so weak and feeble and _strange_ in the first place then none of this would have happened. She bites her lip furiously, desperate to keep it together. Falling apart is too selfish to be an option.

Elodie, sensing Hecate’s distress, loosens her hold just enough to allow their eyes to meet. She taps Hecate’s bottom lip with her forefinger and it’s quickly released. It turns ruby red as the blood rushes back to it, pulsing beneath the recently trapped skin.

With a sigh, Elodie cradles Hecate’s face between her palms, kissing her temple. A hasty tear sneaks out from the corner of Hecate’s eye, spilling without permission. _A traitor._

“You aren’t to blame for this, sweetheart. Not for any of it.” Hecate’s tongue sticks to the roof of her mouth and refuses to budge an inch. She feels incredibly hot, as if there’s suddenly a furnace close by. Her gaze flits to Pippa, who is regarding her with glassy eyes and a sweet, open smile. 

She’s tipped forwards on her feet, on the verge of barreling over and hugging them. _Probably never letting go._ Her mother’s gentle voice canters out and Pippa decides to wait before doing so. 

“Let me look at you.” Elodie scans Hecate for signs of injury, the wrinkles around her eyes forming like diverging rivers.

There’s still a sizeable bump on Hecate’s cheek from where it connected with the floor that wasn’t visible last night. Elodie runs her thumb over the edge of it, her eyes immediately welling again. With the tenderest of touches, it shrinks beneath her fingers.

“Are there any more?” The question tumbles out shakily, though Elodie does her best to keep her tone even. 

“No, it’s—I mean, Pippa healed them,” Hecate stammers, holding her hand out to pull Pippa closer. 

Elodie draws Pippa in until her arms are wrapped around both of them, so tightly it’s almost smothering. “That’s my baby,” she whispers against Pippa’s hair, her warm breath heating her scalp. 

She places a hand behind each of their necks and kisses their foreheads. “I love you. _Both_ of you. Very, _very_ much.”

_Love._

Hecate’s chest constricts and expands with the flight of a thousand butterflies inside it. Air is suddenly a precious commodity that she has no means of obtaining. Her head spins and spins, dizzy from the lurching carousel of emotions that stops and starts in all directions. 

Love is not something that she knows how to navigate. Not something that she remembers how to accept. Love is murky and blurred and unpredictable. It is rife with danger. She’s surprised by the weightless joy that ripples through her at Elodie’s words. She wishes she could hold on to that, to soak it in and revel in it and marvel at its unparalleled beauty, the feeling of completeness that aches inside of her.

But with it comes a horrible, dawning realisation that soon she’s going to have to do something almost inconceivable. Something so gut-wrenchingly terrible that she knows her heart will never recover. 

_Soon._

Hecate snaps out of her reverie when Elodie pulls back, straightening up and smoothing her hands across the sides of her hair. She turns to address Mistress Hazelgrove, her poise so regal that Hecate nearly curtsies.

“That will be all, Theodora. We are going home.” _Who knew that Mistress Hazelgrove had a first name?_

Elodie flicks her hand, golden sparks flowing from her fingers. Two packed suitcases appear at their feet and Morgana, looking rather irritated at being disturbed from her nap, rests in Elodie’s arms.

With three trails of smoke, they are gone.


	12. we belong to the moon

A few nights later, they lie on Pippa’s roof. The blanket beneath them is made of thick, tartan wool, and rubs roughly against their skin. An arch of fairy lights that Pippa has formed above them glint like sprinkled gold dust.

“I still can’t believe that you turned Yarrow’s hair into snakes,” Hecate grins, quirking a playful eyebrow at the blonde next to her. She slings a sinewy arm over her eyes, covering her face. “I fear you did Medusa rather a disservice.”

Pippa’s retaliation had been nothing awful or irreversible. Pippa is far too kind for that, loyal though she is, but it warms Hecate’s insides that she defended her just the same.

“Well, I still think it was justified, and altogether perfectly fitting. I wasn’t to know she was allergic to reptiles,” Pippa scoffs, rolling over on the blanket and propping herself up on her elbows to look at Hecate. “The others had better watch themselves as well. Suspension is far too light if you ask me.”

Hecate laughs then, a broken sound that is miles away from her usual laugh, and Pippa’s smile falters. She wants to push that laughter back inside her mouth and make sure that it never returns.

“You don’t need to do anything on my account.” Hecate still looks wan, her sharp features drawn harsh and waif-like across her face.

Pippa leans forward, reaching to press her forehead to Hecate’s. “They hurt you. That’s my business.” She falls back, her hand coming up to brush Hecate’s hair out of her eyes. _Those strands are notorious escape artists._ “No one hurts my Hiccup and gets away with it. Not anymore.”

Hecate’s eyes sting. She feels lightheaded and slightly dazed by Pippa’s unwavering commitment their friendship, her exquisite resolve, her powerful magic. Feels ashamed of her own inadequacy, her _wrongness_ alongside Pippa.

She remembers Pippa speaking in a voice that she hadn’t even recognised as belonging to her. Remembers Pippa cursing into the night, vowing to maim the perpetrators if they ever did anything to Hecate again. Pippa’s knuckles drawn, white and ready. Pippa snatching Yarrow by the throat. 

There had been a gleam of something in her eyes that Hecate had known all too well and wanted to permanently extinguish. A darkness, something so un-Pippa and so absolutely _Hecate_ that she still feels immeasurable dread. She will not let it take Pippa - her light, her goodness.

“Will you ever tell me what they said to you?” Pippa asks, though she already anticipates the answer. She will not violate Hecate’s trust by finding out from Juliet but she wants, badly, for Hecate to let her in. To share every unkind word so that she can stomp them out one by one.

“It doesn’t matter.” Hecate’s reply is curdled, terse, and she swallows thickly, as if the brambles are back around her neck. Her cheekbones look more pronounced in this light, the hollows beneath them almost dramatically gouged. Caverns of loneliness and sorrow carved out over a decade. Her fingers flex at her side as she tries to angle her body away.

“You will _always_ matter to me, Hecate Hardbroom,” Pippa promises, but she does not push any further. 

Hecate’s tightly clasped fingers unfurl, lengthening towards Pippa, the small, silvery willow branches searching for her palm. Pippa cups Hecate’s hand in both of her own and strokes it softly. 

They lie on their backs, watching the night sky. Pippa names the stars slowly, devotedly, doing her best to remember all of the woven constellations that Hecate has taught her. Her nose scrunches in concentration as she tries to give them back to Hecate, to show her that she listens. That she never forgets. That Hecate has opened up an atlas of the skies for her that she will cherish forever.

“You know, if it wasn’t for the light, the stars would disappear. It stops them from splintering.” Hecate’s words are so frail they might be mistaken for the breeze, but Pippa hears them. 

In fact, she hears, more specifically, what Hecate doesn’t quite say. “Then it’s a very good thing that the light and the stars are best friends,” Pippa croons, tracing patterns over the back of Hecate’s hand.

Hecate’s wrists are still pink and sore, despite Pippa’s efforts to heal them. Dark magic fades slowly, even when cast out. Pippa moves her ministrations down to the skin there, skimming over the angry marks with featherlight tenderness.

It’s unfathomable to her that anyone would want to hurt Hecate. To cause her pain. Despite Hecate’s protests about her fussing, her pestering, Pippa vows that she will protect Hecate at any cost, whether or not she has permission to do so. That she will not let Hecate believe for a moment that she is anything less than astonishing.

Hecate is content to stay quiet. She tries to steady the intense beating of her heart so as not to alert Pippa to her thoughts, her worries. 

“Your mother won’t be happy if she finds out we’ve broken curfew three nights in a row. Perhaps we should go back inside.” She makes no move to do so, however, instead twisting her body so that she can face Pippa on the blanket.

“Oh do shut up, Hiccup. Being a goody two shoes is very unbecoming.” Her reply is sardonic, but her words are soft and her lips quirk as she narrows her eyes defiantly.

She sticks her tongue out at Hecate, pinching her ribs. 

And then something, somehow, imperceptibly bursts. Hecate smiles until her teeth are showing, wide and and open and more beautiful than Pippa can even comprehend. There’s a cracking sensation in her chest as she stares at Hecate, unable to tear her eyes away. Pippa giggles, free and crisp, like bubbles floating up to join the lights in the sky.

“ _I’m_ happy. Here, with you. And I like the moon like this,” Pippa whispers dreamily, flipping onto her back again and gazing at the crescent above them. “She’s pretty when she’s full, too, but it’s better when she’s a little tucked away. It almost looks like she’s smiling at us.”

Hecate hums, running her thumb over the back of Pippa’s hand. They stay there for the longest time, until Pippa has to cast another gentle warming spell and the air glitters around them in a kaleidoscope of colour.

She turns her head, tucking her hand under her chin and resting her cheek against it. She watches the lights flicker in Hecate’s irises, turning her eyes the loveliest shade of cinnamon. 

“I’m still impressed that Mother gave Mistress Hazelgrove the coal raking of a lifetime. I could practically see smoke billowing up from her chair.” Hecate’s face crinkles as she laughs. 

“Your mother was right. Mistress Hazelgrove is lax in her rounds. Which serves us well, usually, though given her position her ineptitude is rather irritating. She’s just fortunate that her head is so far up in the clouds no one can reach to remove it.” Pippa snorts.

“Gosh, such a way with words,” Pippa teases, her eyes shining. “I’m lucky that you don’t find me irritating, I suppose.”

“I think you’ll find that I consider you to be entirely more irritating than anyone else, Pippa Pentangle,” Hecate grumbles, though her voice brims with affection.

Pippa’s head moves to rest in Hecate’s lap and smooth nails find her scalp, scraping across it in gentle strokes. Cool fingers tease her curls, which halo around her like a crown. She can feel the soft rise and fall of Hecate’s breath, which occasionally hitches when Pippa says anything remotely sentimental or silly. 

It’s so intimate that tears threaten Pippa’s eyes, but she keeps them at bay, too afraid to break the spell. The night feels like it’s theirs, infinite and accepting, and for once Pippa decides that she loves the darkness.

They’re still on the roof hours later when Elodie finds them, fast asleep and entwined. She should scold them, really. Should have scolded them the two previous nights as well, when she’d come across them in much the same way. But the scene tugs her heart so entirely that she cannot bring herself to be cross. Instead, she says a few simple words and transfers them to Pippa’s bed. 

And tomorrow night, she thinks, she’ll happily do it again.


	13. I could not name the things I was afraid of

The day that things go wrong for good, Hecate doesn't see it coming. It starts out ordinarily enough, as it usually does when the world changes. Most people, in the wake of great tragedies, remember the mundane things they were doing when everything flipped on its axis.

For Hecate, it begins with relative normality. At least normality for her and Pippa, which always includes a few small disasters.

She gasps when the potion she’s mixing explodes with a bang, escaping the cauldron and flying out in all directions. The blowback coats her in a cloud of pink dust. Hecate sits back open mouthed, spitting out the pithy grains that adhere like sherbet to her tongue. 

_Fortunately,_ Miss Wyndham is not in the room and does not witness the unholy mess. _Unfortunately,_ Pippa claps a hand over her mouth, biting back a chuckle.

“Don’t you dare laugh, Pippa. This is your fault,” Hecate huffs, trying to shake off the powder but only succeeding at smearing it further into her robes. 

“I beg your pardon,” Pippa protests, her laugh vibrating so loudly that Hecate can feel it in her ribs. “You were the one who insisted that passion flower essence would be a fine substitute for passion flower extract.”

True as that may be, if Pippa wasn’t so _damn distracting_ then she wouldn’t have been so careless.

“I did no such thing.” The look in Hecate’s eyes would be enough to scorch anyone else but it just adds to Pippa’s amusement.

She brushes her hands against Hecate’s shoulders, fighting a losing battle against the dust before deciding that magic is their only option. “Next time, maybe you’ll be less stubborn about letting me be the one to stir.” She clicks her fingers, mumbling _colligentes,_ and the devastation swirls back into the pot. Entirely unusable, but at least no longer smattered across every imaginable surface.

They’ve just about managed to go two full minutes without bickering when Miss Wyndham bobs into the room. The atmosphere shifts and there’s a stern, solemn energy about her when she addresses the class. 

“Girls, gather round. And try to look less vacant, I’m teaching witches not walls.” The soles of her boots clack across the floor with the grace of an ungainly Great Dane. For all her pomp, Miss Wyndham is as clumsy as they come.

Pippa and Hecate reluctantly trundle towards her. They perch on small stools that have arranged themselves into a semicircle around the squishy mass of eccentricity that somehow passes for a person. 

“Before we start, I must tell you that the spell we are learning today is very serious. Very serious indeed. It is not to be practiced at leisure, tempting as it may be.” Miss Wyndham’s brows furrow, her large silver rings clinking together as she laces her hands in front of her, as if in prayer.

“There may come times in your lives as witches when you find yourselves in dire need, when it may become necessary to allow your mind some reprieve. Mental weariness is the enemy of the Craft.”

Pippa is standing so close to Hecate that she can barely focus. Every time she moves her arm brushes up against the fabric of Hecate’s dress and it’s so impossible to ignore that Hecate contemplates switching places with Madison. All she can think about is the smell of honeysuckle that coats the inside of her lungs and how Pippa’s lips are puckered in concentration, pink and full. _Oh Merlin, this is bad._

Hecate clears her throat, as if the sound might bring about some semblance of reason. Obviously, it doesn’t work. It only achieves a look of concern from Pippa, who puts a hand on her sleeve. _That’s gone really, really well._ Pippa mouths to her, asking what’s wrong, but she simply shakes her head in return and gestures for her to listen to Miss Wyndham.

Things are getting out of hand at an ever increasing speed of late. Pippa is constantly beside her, asking her if she’s okay if she so much as blinks differently and it’s too much, far, far too much, and not enough, and just… _ugh._ She’s making it nearly impossible for Hecate to keep a clear head and her feelings are spiralling out of control.

Pippa tuts, folding her arms across her chest, definitely not satisfied with Hecate’s answer. Subtlety is not one of Pippa’s strong suits, which proves to be another problem.

“Hecate, Pippa. Unless I’m hallucinating I very much recall emphasising the importance of paying attention to what I’m trying to teach you.” Miss Wyndham’s nostrils flare wildly and the skin around her mouth pinches, tight and unimpressed.

Hecate’s eyes narrow, though they remain fixed ahead of her, not daring to shoot Pippa the glare that she deserves. “I would appreciate it if you’d be so kind as to contain your lovers’ spat until you’re outside of my classroom.”

It’s meant as an offhand admonishment of their squabbling. A flippant remark, designed to shake them into submission. Hecate knows that, but it cuts very, very close to the bone. 

Her lip trembles in horror. Pippa is blushing furiously and Hecate is confident that there is not a water source in the world large enough to stop the burning in her chest.

“Now, as I was saying. The spell we are practising today, the _Felicium_ charm, is a vital component of the Craft. It will enable you to recharge your powers, to vitalise your magic and give it space to breathe when other avenues seem exhausted. Think of it as the magical equivalent to coming up for air when drowning.”

Her words hit Hecate like a harpoon to the forehead. She sways forward slightly, before slamming her hand on the desk to catch herself. Pippa scowls at Miss Wyndham as if toying with the idea of delivering a scathing retort. She resists, barely. Miss Wyndham looks bemused for a moment at Pippa’s evident outrage and then stiffens as understanding dawns.

“Oh,” Miss Wyndham coughs, her lips forming a tight ring, eyeing Hecate uncomfortably. “Perhaps a better likeness, my dears, is lighting a fire when you are at risk of perishing from the cold.”

Hecate stares at the floor. Pippa wraps a protective forearm around the bottom of Hecate’s back loosely, and she’s too faint to protest.

“The way it works is very simple, although hard to master.” Miss Wyndham scurries back and forth as she speaks, for no real reason other than to appear more pressed for time. “It requires you to draw on your greatest source of happiness, the thing, perhaps, that you love the most, and to manifest that feeling into something palpable that can be held in your hands. At this stage, you will need your cauldrons to cast the spell. As your skills progress, you will be able to utilise it without magical aids.”

Miss Wyndham steps back from her students, flipping her fingers, palm up. She hums, though it seems more for effect than anything else. “Allow me to demonstrate.”

A bright orb of light begins to grow in her hand, gradually morphing and whirling until the outline of a library filled to the rafters with books takes shape within a kettle-sized tower of green fire. Her happiness is in plain view for all of the class to see, shimmering and lovely.

A grenade could have gone off in the room and Hecate wouldn’t have heard it. Miss Wyndham’s words ring in her ears, starching her spine. _This cannot be happening._

What goddesses could she possibly have riled this much? There’s a growing realisation that she’s teetering on the brink of total annihilation, a kind of exposure that she will never be able to recover from.

Blind panic punches against Hecate’s ribcage. Pippa’s arm feels like molten lead at her back and she swerves to the side under the pretence of returning to her desk and readying her cauldron.

The rest of the girls do likewise, taking their places at their respective worktops and preparing for the exercise.

It’s Madison’s turn first. Her brows fuse in concentration, busy and quick fingers flapping in front of cast iron. It takes some time, but eventually a bright burst of fire erupts from her cauldron. Fragments of light swirl into the form of a cantering horse, pacing across a wheat field.

Faeby Featherling casts an image of a boat, floating in a bay. Zooey Orlivale manages a slightly dimmer version of a child’s birthday party. Wendie Ringwald impresses everyone with a radiant fireworks display.

They all seem like safe possibilities. Perhaps the situation is not so dire as Hecate first imagined. None of them have pictured _people._ Maybe the spell is slightly more malleable, more open to interpretation. If she can just think of something halfway suitable, perhaps there’s still a chance that she can cobble together enough verve to convincingly trick her magic. _Seems totally plausible, right?_

Then Polly Thirlaway conjures an impression of what Hecate assumes must be her grandmother, and her confidence disappears. She clamps her jaw tightly, gritting her teeth. It’s taking her far too long to arrange her apparatus on the desk and she can feel Pippa shooting her a strange look, though she point blank refuses to meet it.

Her heart swells even at the notion of Pippa. It’s a siren song, begging her to press her lips to Pippa’s, to soothe them with her own, to meld them together in a way that can surely never break apart again. It plummets rapidly as she tries to stamp out the stupidity behind such idiotic sentiments. Longing is a luxury that she can no longer afford, especially under the circumstances.

She knows what’s going to happen if she performs this spell, and it is absolutely unthinkable.

Miss Wyndham moves to stand in front of Hecate’s desk, tapping her fingers against the wood. Her expression is hard to gauge, but Hecate suspects it flags mild concern at her erratic paper shuffling. 

“It’s your turn, Miss Hardbroom.” Miss Wyndham’s gaze floats to Pippa, who must communicate something unspoken. Her hands still and her lips form a thin line. “When you’re ready, of course.”

Hecate can feel eyes peering at her from all angles. Her face is hot and her airway constricts, leaving her with very little oxygen. Petrified is an understatement. Terror leeches through her belly, clean and sharp, pooling inside of her and then making its way up her gullet. She can hear Yarrow’s voice in her head, sneering and all too perceptive.

This task is one that she should be able to accomplish without batting an eyelash. Magic pulses at her fingertips, strong and alive and just waiting to be released, but she cannot indulge its urgent wish. She’s rigged for failure before she even begins.

Snatching a stilted breath, she wills herself to think of anything else. To barricade her mind against the picture that comes to her unbidden, always. She fixes her memory on opening petals and mulled apple punch and elm trees foxtrotting in the moonlight. 

Try as she might, her cauldron remains devoid of any activity. A dreadful, impending sense of doom coils around her waist. _This isn’t going to work._

Miss Wyndham stands with her hands on her hips, staring at the girl in front of her expectantly. “Focus, Hecate. This is critical.” 

Hecate can feel her heart thumping, sporadic and sickening, in her throat. Her cheeks burn.

She squeezes her timepiece between her fingers and makes a desperate decision. Pressing her eyes closed, she tries to think of her mother, to anchor herself to anything that is not the head of blonde curls bouncing beside her. 

It’s a prospect that is daunting in itself. She doesn’t want to share her memories of her mother with anyone in this room, but even that is somehow safer than the alternative. She has no choice.

The fire that answers is feeble, barely standing at a centimetre, and Hecate winces dejectedly. Really, she should have expected it, but it stings just the same. She remembers so little, and the reminder of that aches. Hecate sighs raggedly, pinching the bridge of her nose.

“That isn’t going to rejuvenate anything,” Miss Wyndham chides. She raises an eyebrow, the arch so high it’s almost curving back into a circle. Suspicion crosses her face at Hecate’s sudden inability to excel.

Hecate is dangerously close to tears. Embarrassment mingles with the pain of not being able to picture her own mother and spreads inside her like clematis climbing a trellis, struggling to find the light of day.

Miss Wyndham turns away briefly and Pippa is pressed to her side within seconds, her lips coming to rest next to Hecate’s ear. “Ignore her, Hiccup,” Pippa whispers, softly enough so as not to be heard by the woman in question. “You’re the best witch in this room.”

Hecate does her best to ignore Pippa’s proximity but, _god, why does she insist on being so near to her?_

Miss Wyndham’s withering gaze snaps back to them and Pippa shifts away, just far enough for Hecate to try to put a lid on her thoughts.

The teacher folds her arms across her chest, her tongue resting at the side of her top lip and evidencing her increasing impatience.

What else can she try? What else? Anything, _anything—_

Her mind skips to Morgana, curling up on her chest after a long day. Paws kneading softly against the fabric of her blankets. Tiny embers begin to light softly, kindling into faint flickers. 

_Yes,_ Morgana makes her happy. A small fire emerges from her cauldron, weak, but present nonetheless. Yes, _yes,_ she can make this work. She can do this. If she can just hone in on the thought of Morgana, gentle and purring, and given to her so thoughtfully by _Pippa—_

The flame jumps for a moment, just long enough for Hecate to snatch back her hand and curse in frustration. _No._

Her pulse is so frantic inside her ears that she wonders if she might combust on the spot. Might leave nothing behind but threads of cloth and smoke.

“Better, but lukewarm won’t do, I’m afraid. You need to really mean it. Stop blocking your power,” Miss Wyndham demands, drumming her fingers more insistently.

She’s a stone’s throw away from picturing Miss Wyndham being ducked. _Wouldn't that be nice?_

Everything is too loud. Yarrow and her cronies might not be in the classroom but she still hears whispering and titters between the other girls and wonders if they’re directed at her.

Her heart clangs violently as if trying to escape to confines of her body. To show itself to Pippa. To make its way to her hands. Hecate swallows hard.

She closes her eyes, lifting her fingers, ready to try again. Morgana, stretching her claws out as she yawns, curving her tail as she—

A soft, soothing voice dances out from beside her. “You can do it, Hiccup. I know you can.” _For Merlin’s sake,_ if Pippa would just _shut up_ and let her think about anything else for even a minute then maybe she could—

Pippa sends her a sweet smile, innocently clasping her hand and the flame bursts into light as if doused with a splash of kerosine.

Hecate rips her fingers away, staggering backwards, and the fire dies out instantly. She’s breathing roughly, choking back air in gulps and her eyes dart wildly around the room. 

“Hecate, are you alright, darling?” Pippa’s face is swimming with worry as she reaches out to touch Hecate’s arm, fingers circling her wrist. 

There’s an audible buzz and then Hecate’s magic shoots out, crimson sparks sending her books flying from her desk and suddenly everyone stills. Mouths hang open, foreheads wrinkle and everyone is staring at her, everyone is watching her, everyone can see her heart, flapping like a caged bird dying inside her chest.

“Do you need—”

“Stop smothering me!” Hecate snaps at Pippa, humiliation and anger tearing through her body, shredding her organs. 

Pippa’s expression shifts to panic and she takes a tentative step closer, flexing her fingers as if contemplating reaching for her again and hot rage sears through Hecate. She throws her hand up, magic hurling Pippa backwards through the air. There’s a sickening thud as her legs collide with the bench behind her and Pippa wobbles, grabbing at Polly who has rushed to her side.

Hecate wastes no more time watching the aftermath of her fury crumbling around around her. She spins on her heels, storming out of the classroom without another word.

“Hecate, _what on earth?”_ Pippa wheezes, her hand pressed against her ribs, knees bowing underneath her weight.

By the time she realises she’s talking to an empty space, everything has already changed irreparably.


	14. balancing a sword inside of her body

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter makes me so sad but I promise that soon things get better.

An awareness of poisons has always been essential to Hecate. As demonstrated earlier with the powder fiasco, potions with one incorrect ingredient rarely have happy endings. When working with poisons, even the right ingredient used in the wrong way can have lethal consequences.

She knows that belladonna, with its sweet black berries and purple flowers, can cause paralysis in the muscles, including the heart. She knows, too, that white snakeroot can kill indirectly if livestock graze on the plant before their milk is gathered, just as the honey of bees drunk on oleander can bring down a village.

She kicks at the tree in front of her, beating her hands bloody against its bark. It starts to hurt, but it’s nothing compared to the tempest she feels inside her chest. Tears stream down her face, mocking and merciless. She had hurt Pippa. She had _wanted_ to hurt Pippa, and the knowledge of that alone is enough to kill her. She will never, ever forgive herself for that.

A twig snaps behind her and she twists, her stomach lurching when she sets eyes on the culprit.

“Trying to pick a fight with some nature spirits?” Pippa’s voice is far, far too sweet to be real. “I hear they can’t wield weapons, but I’d rather not chance you getting impaled by a branch.”

Hecate shoots her miserably pathetic daggers before turning to face the tree once again. She braces her arms against the trunk and dips her head, breathing raggedly. The inside of her mouth tastes like soot, chalky and bitter. _What the hell is Pippa doing here?_

A soft hand presses between her shoulder blades, fingers twitching gently against the rough fabric of her dress. Another runs across the bump of bone at the base of Hecate’s neck, stroking the smooth skin that it finds there.

Pippa’s silky voice drawls against her ear. “Don’t worry, Hiccup. You’ll get it next time, I’m sure of it.”

Hecate lets out a self-deprecating laugh. “I don’t care about some ridiculous spell.” Her tone betrays a grudging fatigue. “Why are you even here?”

“Because you are. I came to find you,” Pippa answers simply, as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world. She takes Hecate’s hands and presses light kisses against her swollen knuckles, one by one. The flesh is scratched and raw, a mess of dirt and splinters.

“Why would you bother?” Hecate sniffs, her limbs getting heavier and heavier to hold up. Without warning, her tears transform into racking sobs that shake her thin frame. 

Pippa ignores her question, moulding her body against Hecate’s more firmly as she circles her waist. “Hecate, my darling, what’s the matter?” Hecate doesn’t reply, only cries harder. _Pippa should hate her. It would be so much easier if she could just hate her._

When she finally turns, Pippa is so close to her that she can smell peppermint on her breath. _A grave mistake._ The hairs on the back of her neck prickle and her tears die down as quickly as they came. 

Pippa is staring up at her with a crooked little smile that’s almost hopeful, hesitating. She closes her eyes, waiting, her nose nudging upwards against Hecate’s, her fingers ghosting Hecate’s collarbone. Hecate’s throat is dry as the desert. Her eyelids flutter shut momentarily as she draws in a shaky drag of air.

She longs to kiss Pippa. She wants to do more than kiss her. Wants, desperately, to devour her, to suck at Pippa’s neck, to make a mark that will render it impossible to mistake who she belongs—

_No._

No, no, _no._ She yanks her head back so hard that it slams against the tree behind her. Pippa opens her eyes, regarding Hecate with a mixture of worry and what might be disappointment. Her mouth opens as if she’s going to speak but no words come out. She licks at her lips, her eyes scanning Hecate’s face frantically.

Hecate knows, with a certainty that grows inside her like a second heartbeat, that she’s going to have to leave. This is getting too precarious, too ill-fated. The darkness of her magic is beginning to overflow like torrential rain bursting the banks of a stream.

She is a poison that bleeds out into everyone around her. Pippa, her mother, probably the Pentangles if they spend any more time in her presence. There’s an errant blackness that swirls in her organs like settling tar, clogging up her arteries and merging with her blood. Something insidious and toxic. 

Pippa is already under her skin, inside of her, and she doesn’t want to contemplate what might happen to Pippa, to her unyielding goodness, if Hecate were to be under hers. How prolonged contact with Hecate, like the slightest touch of foxgloves or death caps, might already have seeded something sinister in Pippa’s veins.

She cannot trust herself to love Pippa without leaving rot and ruin in her wake. That she could dream of hurting Pippa in any way, of shouting at her in front of a room full of other people, of spoiling her perfect skin with her own base desires, is nauseating. Excruciating. _Inconceivable._

She thinks of Cygnus, the Swan. How the constellation came to be. Two best friends always challenging each other and competing, until the day they race around the sun. Twin chariots falling to earth in a sea of fire. 

She thinks of Phaeton’s body trapped by tree roots at the bottom of a river. Of Cygnus diving and diving, unable to reach him, begging Zeus for help. Of Cygnus surrendering his immortality, his existence, to retrieve his friend’s body and allow him passage into the afterlife. The great unselfish act, written in the stars forever.

And now Hecate must make her own, agonising, sacrifice.

Pippa must sense the dark tangent that Hecate’s thoughts have taken because she cups her cheeks, willing her to meet her eyes.

“Hiccup, whatever it is, I will—”

_Three-two-one, cue the performance of a lifetime._ Hecate squeezes her eyes shut and pushes Pippa’s shoulders forcefully, causing her to stagger backwards with a horrible yelp.

“Stay away from me, Pippa Pentangle. Go and find someone else to bother,” Hecate growls, with as much coldness as she can muster. The thump of her heart is repulsively persistent. It’s too much to stomach, but it’s necessary.

“W-what?” Pippa asks shakily, the word thick and cloying as it rolls off her tongue.

Hecate folds her arms across her chest, trying to put a barrier between them. “I don’t want your company.”

Pippa can practically feel Hecate’s nerve endings crackling. “Alright, well if you need some time alone then I—”

“I don’t want it ever again.” It’s the furthest thing from the truth, but she’s made it this far. Hecate’s cheeks are bright red. She’s a terrible liar and she knows that Pippa must see through her like a pane of glass.

Or at least that’s what she expects, but Pippa’s face says otherwise. “You don’t mean that,” Pippa croaks, her voice cracking in the middle. She looks so painfully forlorn that Hecate, for a moment, considers stopping everything and taking her into her arms.

_That’s the opposite of what’s needed,_ she reminds herself. She’s doing this for Pippa, gut-wrenching as it may seem right now. 

“I can assure you that I do.” The reply seems to break Pippa and she folds nearly in half, clutching her chest. A watery sob escapes and it’s like a bottle being uncorked. Hot, round tears begin to spill from Pippa’s eyes, splashing against the front of her dress and her entire body starts to quake.

“ _Why?_ ” Her question is so small and mangled that Hecate wants to scream. She tears at her lips with her teeth, ripping into her skin until her tongue tastes of nothing but blood. _This must be hell. This must be where Hades sends the souls of the dead._

“I have my reasons.” The words are pitiful, insufficient, and the guilt of it all sends her mind reeling. Pippa’s body is still bent, contorted like a puppet with some of its strings haphazardly cut. Hecate can feel iron bolts drawing against a future that she once pictured, full of light, and laughter, and Pippa’s breathtaking smile.

“ _What_ reasons?” Hecate doesn’t reply. She can’t. The world is caving in, chunks of regret and disgust crumbling on top of her. Hecate neglected to take a lamp and a pickaxe along with her on the journey. The canary has long since been snuffed out.

Her own tears spring to her eyes and start tumbling down her cheeks. “Maybe I didn’t make myself clear enough. Leave me alone. I don’t like you and I don’t want to be your friend. I’m sick of you clinging to me like a barnacle.”

Pippa gasps, but she sticks her chin out, jabbing Hecate in the centre of her chest with a pointed finger. “I don’t believe you.” Pippa’s tone is pleading and scared and Hecate doesn’t think that there’s a feeling worse than this in the universe. Her voice might be the sound that Satan uses to torture his prisoners. “Where is this coming from?”

“What part of fuck off do you not get?” The words trickle out of her like blood. Pippa has never, ever heard Hecate swear before and it twists like a rusty knife in her abdomen.

“You’re being beastly, Hecate,” Pippa shouts angrily, but there’s a tremor of torment lurking dangerously close to the surface.

“Maybe I am beastly,” Hecate snaps, though she looks tired and defeated. _Terrified._

Something breaks, like the noise a dream makes when it splits clean in half.

“I don’t understand,” Pippa cries, her voice so tiny and crestfallen that Hecate still hears every syllable when she closes her eyes for the next three decades. But Hecate remains silent, resolute, turning her back on Pippa and resting her forehead against the bark of the tree in front of her. _This is the worst thing she’s ever done._

And even though Hecate is weeping, her body shuddering and grotesque, even though she looks more afraid than Pippa has ever seen her, it stings. It stings so much that Pippa is nearly blinded by her tears and it cuts her in a place that she’s too frightened and too humiliated and too heartbroken to name.

Although she can’t see Pippa’s face, Hecate hears the hitch in her voice, hears a hand moving to muffle a broken sob. “As you wish it.” Those four words will haunt Hecate for the rest of her life. They perforate her skin, sinking into the membranes of her very being and stitching through everything. _This must be what dying feels like._

There’s a hurried sound of heels running against leaves and then the empty, unbearable noise of nothing at all. It’s an aching loneliness so familiar to Hecate that it’s almost a comfort. _Almost._ But there’s also the excruciating sensation of her heart cracking into two, girl-shaped pieces. 

Like Atropos, she thinks, cutting the thread of her life with a pair of golden shears. But even the gods are not this cruel. _She has no one to blame but herself._


	15. a box full of darkness

Hecate does not return to their room that night. She stays in the forest until there's only one light shining from the castle windows. It radiates bright and full out of their turret from a small, white star.

Despite Mistress Hazelgrove’s more strict procedures, Hecate has plenty of practice moving around undetected. She waits until the early morning, until she’s sure Pippa has left. The image of a double’s display with only one half of a team burns at her eyes until she’s certain she’s going to lose her sight.

She makes quick work of her exit, bundling the few things she owns into her suitcase. She notices the rowan charms dangling above her head and lets out an agonising laugh. Rowan, planted in a graveyard, prevents the dead from lingering. 

_She won’t stay long._

Hecate commits another sin that day, on top of her mounting repertoire of transgressions, stealing a photograph that once sat proudly at the heart of their shared altar. She’ll add thief to her list of crimes, along with traitor, and coward. 

She cries so hard as she lifts Morgana into her arms that she’s sure Pippa will find shards of her heart on the floor.

* * *

When Pippa makes her way to their room after her mortifying ordeal at the double’s display, she is livid.

She’s proficient at transference now, but she opts to take the stairs to the turret. She marches up the steps one by one, trying with every footstep to calm the anger that’s twitching at her fingertips.

She’s ready to scream at Hecate. To demand an apology that she doubts will be forthcoming. To shake her and plead with her until she sees sense.

Pippa scoffs, a slight wave of pleasure coursing through her at the image of Hecate spluttering and tongue-tied, mumbling her remorse in a flurry of jumbled sentences. 

What she finds instead as she pushes their door open floods her insides with dread. Fear bangs at her ribcage as she takes in the empty room, the deafening silence, _Hecate’s missing things._ Two beds that are no longer side by side.

 _No._ This isn’t supposed to happen. This _cannot_ be happening, not to her. _Not to them._

She throws down her broom and her cloak, careening with feet that feel like cinder blocks towards a piece of paper that sits on top of her pillow. She curses Hecate’s name over and over, coils of betrayal and dark sadness clawing at her throat. 

“You bloody idiot, Hecate Hardbroom,” she screams, punching at her covers with balled fists until they throb. She collapses against the mattress, her face mashed against the lumpy surface, tears covering everything with salty liquid and making it chafe against her already sore cheeks.

Eventually, she props herself up on her elbow, just enough to reach for the glowing star that Hecate has perched next to the letter. She hurls it as hard as she can against the wooden floor, desperately trying to smash it. The ball of light lands with a heavy thud, then teeters across the boards, rolling to a stop at the foot of Hecate’s bed. It remains completely intact. _Perfect._

Pippa laughs. She laughs and laughs, off kilter and manic, until wretched sobs spill from her lungs and she dissolves into absolute despair. She scrambles up, carefully retrieving the object and bringing it to her chest.

“I’m sorry,” Pippa cries, cradling it with as much tenderness as she possesses. It continues to shine in her palm, faithful and true, and it leaves Pippa feeling more desolate than ever because it’s so _Hecate_ to give something that Pippa can’t destroy. She’s cast some kind of charm on it, Pippa is sure, predicting that Pippa would do something so foolish when she discovered her departure. A final act of kindness, like a rose thrown onto a coffin.

“Where are you, Hiccup?” Pippa whispers, her anger entirely evaporated now and eclipsed by the purest form of sorrow.

She picks up the parchment. Hecate’s distinctive handwriting, precise and curved, swims before her eyes as she blinks back another wave of tears.

_I won’t ask for your forgiveness but I’m so, unspeakably sorry, Pipsqueak._  
_Please believe me when I say that I only long for your happiness._  
_I’ll miss you for as long as I live._

_Your Hiccup_

There’s a tear stain above her name and Pippa runs the pad of her finger around its edges in continuous loops. She still doesn’t understand, will never understand, but the message somehow answers a question inside of her that she doesn't even know to ask yet. 

Perhaps, _one day,_ she will.

She thinks of the stars. Of the Northern Crown. Of Ariadne, deserted on the Isle of Naxos, watching Theseus’s back as he rowed away into the sunset. 

A crown of jewels laid in the sky by Zeus himself would not be enough to heal Pippa’s broken heart. 

“Come back to me, Hecate.” She sinks down onto Hecate’s bed and pulls the sheets against her nose, imagining a pale face half buried in the pillow next to her. Absolutely nothing will be right until Hecate is beside her again.

Though Hecate left the star behind, she took the light with her. Without it, a black hole begins to form at the centre of Pippa’s world. She does not sleep a wink.


	16. their nerves click like frozen leaves

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From this point on, the chapters cover the events after their reunion. This chapter uses the exact dialogue from their little confrontation and goes from there. After that, the rest of the story is non-canon but hopefully enjoyable. :)

It’s been almost thirty years, but Hecate knows without question that Pippa has just stepped into the room behind her. She knows it the way people know when an avalanche is heading towards them, powerless to change their course or avoid their fate. There is something electrical in the air, static, and Hecate feels it crackling through the room. _Perilous. Unwise._

She would know Pippa in the dark, underwater, underground. She would know Pippa without any of her senses to guide her.

Out of the corner of her eye she sees Pippa jolt as she realises she’s not alone, that Hecate is there beside her, spine straight as a pine tree. Pippa’s body shifts awkwardly, poised though she is, and she looks torn between exiting immediately and facing the uncomfortable situation at hand. Apparently, she foolhardily opts for the latter. _Excellent._

_What could possibly go wrong, other than everything?_

“Mildred said Miss Cackle wanted to see me,” Pippa states, in a voice so monotone, so unlike her, that Hecate’s stomach knots.

“That’s funny,” she replies, trying to keep her tone as neutral as she can, "she said the same to me.” Her eyes are pinned to the floor, carefully mapping the pattern that she finds there. 

The stilted, clunky conversation that flows between them is almost laughable. As if it isn’t bad enough that things are so painfully damaged, the gods have decided to play another little game to test just how much she can bear.

Pippa, for unknown reasons, still seems intent on continuing. “I’ve got a feeling someone’s been playing a trick on us.”

That much is blatantly obvious, and Hecate knows just who that someone is. Mildred Hubble has no idea what she’s meddling with but the punishment Hecate has in mind for her will make the consequences crystal clear.

“It would appear so.” Hecate’s words are clipped and even. _No point in dragging this out._ She tastes something metallic and tart, like dried blood.

Pippa hesitates, worrying her lip slightly before speaking. “I should probably tell you that I’ve offered Mildred a scholarship.”

Hecate’s muscles tighten. She drags in a measured breath, trying to calm the erratic pump of her heart. It’s so undeniably Pippa to fight for the underdog, to extend her goodness to the person who needs it the most. Her lungs burn, though she’s not sure if it’s from the prospect of losing her _least worst_ student or the reality that this is still Pippa that she’s talking to. _Her Pippa._

Her lack of response sits like a heavy curtain in the gap between them and Pippa must decide that she’s finally had enough of this charade. “Is that the time?” Pippa’s eyes flicker with something Hecate can’t pinpoint. Annoyance, _definitely._ Detest, _probably._ “I’ve got a long flight ahead of me.”

She moves to leave, the gravity of it hitting Hecate like a punch to the gut. _How dare Hecate resent it when she’s the perpetrator of a far worse betrayal? How foolish can she be, to prefer heated words to emptiness?_ She knows how this plays out, and it’s a futile battle. 

But Pippa lingers, stalking back in a way that is somehow both demanding and unsure. Hecate can feel Pippa’s eyes boring into her, though she refuses to look up.

“You were my best friend, Hecate.” Pippa’s hands lift and then drop at her sides. “And then suddenly you stopped talking to me. Why?”

It’s a question that Hecate can’t answer. _Won’t_ answer, at least not with anything worth submitting. She stands like an unclaimed suitcase left on a station platform. Out of place. _Conspicuous._ Her mouth closes and opens as she fumbles for a reply that will suffice. That will end this conversation, here and now, and shut the book on it forever.

“You were always the popular one. You didn’t want me getting in your way.” She won’t look at Pippa. She can’t, not if she wants to get out of this with her heart in one piece. It’s barely functional as it is, battered and haphazardly tacked together, small and shrivelled. Half missing.

She winces as she recalls Yarrow’s leering smirks and Juniper’s evident disgust. She knows that it’s a terrible thing to say to Pippa, whose own heart would never allow her to be friends with them after what they’d done. She’s clutching at straws, trying to beat back the hurricane in her chest that is intent on turning her inside out. _She’s still a coward. Always has been, always will be._

Pippa closes her eyes, shaking her head at the absolute audacity of the statement. It’s a feeble, flimsy excuse and Hecate knows Pippa sees it for what it is: a barefaced lie. 

“I didn’t care about those silly witches,” Pippa scoffs, her voice dripping with acid over the memory of the malicious girls. “You were the only one I wanted to be friends with.” She looks affronted, hurt, that Hecate would think so little of her. That she would even dare to make such a cruel suggestion.

Hecate cannot stand how Pippa’s face is always so honest, displaying her emotions so openly across her features. Especially when what she sees is heartbreak. Pain, inflicted by Hecate, yet again. _Her greatest talent._

She tries to give off even the barest hint of remaining collected, but she’s failing miserably. “But…” Her voice shakes in a way that she positively loathes and her words peter out. She’s already bungled it at the first hurdle. _Fantastic job._ “ _I_ thought—”

Pippa cuts her off and she knows, immediately, that she’s caught. “ _What?_ ” Pippa huffs, her expression ricocheting between amused disbelief and thinly veiled impatience. “Because you were the tall, gangly one I’d rather spend time with them?”

She doesn’t press Hecate. Doesn’t accuse or challenge her pathetic attempts to deflect. Though her tone borders on mocking, she plays along with Hecate’s little ruse out of what Hecate can only assume is a form of kindness that she categorically _does not_ deserve.

Something within Pippa gives out in a way that is almost imperceptible. _Almost._ But Hecate knows Pippa’s face better than her own, knows its nuances and subtle shifts. She can see Pippa’s jaw starting to tremble, the skin around her eyes creasing at the edges.

“All this time we’ve spent, hating each other.” Hecate finally lifts her gaze to meet Pippa’s fully, the shock of the statement catching her off guard. Pippa has an uncanny knack for bulldozing straight through her expertly crafted defences. _It’s irritating beyond belief._ Hecate’s eyes are hard and wet, trying to pull the blurring image before her into focus. 

The absurdity of it brings a lump to her throat. _If only._ Her lower lip quivers dangerously, no matter how much effort she puts into stilling its movements. As if she could ever hate Pippa. As if, for her entire existence, she could ever do anything but _adore_ her unendingly.

She nearly wishes she hadn’t brought herself to look at Pippa because what she finds in front of her is unbearable. 

Everything she’s ever done, every sickening decision she’s ever made, has been to keep Pippa safe, to keep her happy, but she’s standing there looking the saddest that Hecate has ever seen her. 

Despite everything she’s tried to do, despite all that she’s sacrificed, Pippa is still hurting because of her and it aches. It aches and aches, and flares hot against her ribs until she feels like she might throw up. And yet Pippa is still regarding her with such tenderness, such depth, as if Hecate still means something to her and it’s absolutely terrifying.

“I’ve _missed_ you, Hiccup,” Pippa whispers, her whole frame wilting as she speaks. Her face crumples and she appears so vulnerable, so earnest, that Hecate’s eyes widen as large as cauldrons. 

A horrible silence hangs between them. Pippa, who has always seemed larger than life, so certain, bigger and brighter than everything else, seems unfathomably small. _Timid._ Like her heart is dangling over the edge of a precipice. Her eyes are glassy and lost, glazed with emotions that Hecate cannot even bring herself to decipher.

A hundred, nameless moments that Hecate usually tucks away flood back to her, engulfing her in light. Pippa has always been too generous for her own good, too kind, and Hecate doesn’t know what to do with the realisation that this hasn’t changed with time. That Pippa hasn’t changed. The tug of familiarity is almost enough to unravel her completely.

She remembers how her life, once stained through with splotches of perfect pink and shared starlight and sticky doughnuts, was suddenly replaced by an empty room. Her own cold hands. _A lock without a key,_ stuck shut. 

How as a little more than a girl, she made a decision that permanently soured her existence, rotting it from the inside out. She worries that if she opens her mouth blood will start spilling out and she won’t be able to stem the flow.

She feels bile flooding her organs and climbing up her throat. The nagging feeling that she’s had since she first saw the blonde witch in front of her again, _finally,_ all sugarplums and sin, turns her stomach. 

Hecate has legs built for escape, a kitbag of resources stored in the flanks of her thighs that will take her far, far away. She has a switchblade in her mouth that she can pull at a moment’s notice. She wants to retreat, to run, to bury herself in her books and her spells and never look back. 

But she can’t. She _won’t._ Not here, not now. Not when Pippa is standing there, so open and steadfast, offering sweetness despite the fistfuls of suffering that Hecate's handed her. Despite everything that she’s guilty of. 

Pippa’s looking at her like none of it matters, like it never mattered, and Hecate wonders if she’s spent so long convincing herself that she’d done the right thing that she’s overlooked that fact that she hadn’t. That you can do something for the right reasons and still make a mistake. That with the purest of hearts, you can do something unforgivable.

Pippa is just as intoxicating and beautiful and _damn infuriating_ as she's ever been, only now Hecate can name the disastrous, unrelenting feeling that swells inside her chest at the very thought of her for what it is. 

Love. It’s _love._ And Hecate knows that she’s absolutely, unequivocally, _fucked._

She’s tired. _So very tired,_ and the barricade that she’s carefully endeavoured to construct between them irrevocably fractures into a thousand pieces. The tide of emotion that she’s tried to dam for decades breaks loose. She feels so dreadfully young again.

She looks at Pippa, _her Pippa,_ and makes a decision that scares her to the core. 

“I’ve missed you, too,” Hecate murmurs, her voice cracking out in raspy, half-formed words, her pupils dark with remorse and a sheen of pooling tears, “ _Pipsqueak._ ” 

Insecurity surges through her body. Hecate half expects Pippa to laugh, to sneer at her, to tell her that she’s foolish, and stupid, and once again fell for a trick that this time she deserves. Sorrow overtakes her whole being, until the skin beneath her eyes is wet and her features no longer mask anything.

Instead, Pippa’s face collapses, her nose scrunching and tears flowing over her cheeks as all reservations dissolve into nothingness.

Anyone who has ever accused Hecate of being unfeeling has never taken the time to know her. The little quirks of her face, her breathing, her posture, betray emotions brimming beneath the surface and blooming at the edges. She’s like a picture you have to squint at to see clearly, and Pippa can read everything from her eyes alone. The turmoil. _The regret._

Pippa knows Hecate feels things more deeply than anyone else in the universe. Knows her heart is bigger and more fragile, needs to be preserved at all costs. And preserve it Pippa will, until the ends of the earth, even if the price she has to pay is her own.

Suddenly Pippa cannot tolerate the space between them any longer, because it’s been far too long already. _Far too far._ A combination of her mother’s steely determination and her father’s unbridled optimism toes her over the line, swaying her forward until she’s as unambiguous as she can bring herself to be.

She takes a few terrifying steps towards Hecate who moves to meet her, and then she pulls her into her arms, trying desperately to erase the decades between them, the heartache. Pippa can feel the stones of Hecate’s spine through her dress, her warm breath against her neck. She doesn’t think she’s ever been this happy. 

Hecate’s willowy limbs wind around her back and Pippa remembers all of the times she’s held Hecate before, moments melting into one another until a whole picture forms. Strange, and beautiful, and messy, and _theirs._

Hecate’s heart is beating so fast Pippa must be able to feel it but she can’t bring herself to care. Euphoria sings through her body. Pippa is flush against her, honey-sweet and soft, and Hecate can feel her mind being swept away, diluted, tuned only to the sensation of holding Pippa after all this time. Everything is _right_ again, how it’s meant to be. 

And _good god,_ it’s Pippa. It’s _always_ been Pippa.

Their magic meets and melds, healing, the space around them pulsing with an electrical charge as the sparks between them flutter back to life, never really gone. It tells Hecate what she already knows: that they are stronger and more powerful together. 

Two frayed threads braid back into one tangled knot. It’s delicate, thin as a spider’s web, but there all the same, and Hecate doesn’t dare to _want_ too fiercely for fear of separating it once again.

Hecate withdraws slowly, her hands lingering absentmindedly against pink fabric. “Well, I suppose you’d better get back home.” Hecate is poised, almost stern, trying to wrestle back some shred of composure. “I’m sure your students will be eagerly awaiting your arrival.”

Pippa wants to laugh. She wants to shake Hecate and drum into her exactly what’s wrong with that statement, but she nods, trying to conceal her worry. Her disappointment. 

Pippa can hardly bear the distance that Hecate has once again placed between them. Nevertheless, she nurses the faint hope that Hecate’s words have ignited within her, because Pippa always had a special gift for hearing the things that Hecate _almost_ says, and she finds it comforting to know that she still does. She still knows Hecate.

Hecate is harder now, more brittle, but no amount of rigidity will dissuade Pippa from earning back Hecate’s confidence. She will do anything. She knows Hecate’s soul like a map of the stars that are so singed into her memory that there’s no way she can ever get lost beneath them. She will navigate for as long as it takes for Hecate to find her way home, too.

“Ever stringent about timekeeping,” Pippa teases, with a smile that does not quite meet her eyes. She smooths her hands down the front of her dress. “I did let my deputy, Nerys, know when to expect me so unfortunately you have the pleasure of being correct on this occasion. Don’t get used to it.”

Hecate rolls her eyes, picking up Pippa’s broom and heading for the door. _Goddess,_ Pippa had missed her, and missed her, and just when she thought she was through with missing her she had missed her some more. She’d let Hecate go the first time, but she will never make that mistake again.

Hecate is walking a few strides ahead of Pippa, the curve of her back such a nice sight that Pippa can’t complain, but suddenly Hecate seems to reconsider, coming to a dead stop. 

She turns, looking through her lashes at Pippa and then away, before repeating the action. She sighs, hesitating, before bending her elbow out to Pippa, just barely, in silent invitation. She sends her a small, slow smile that makes Pippa’s head spin. Hecate's eyes seek Pippa’s, glittering and lovely, shining with what Pippa _damn well_ chooses to believe is _hope._

Pippa skips forward, curling her fingers gently around the crook of Hecate’s arm without a second thought. For all its intricate stitching, the fabric of the dress may as well not be there. She can feel the warmth of Hecate’s skin beneath and her fingertips tingle at the contact, causing the most pleasant shivers to ghost down her spine. It’s like holding sunshine in her hand.

Pippa hugs Hecate’s arm close to her body, leaning against her side. The pair make their way through the maze of corridors in light conversation and Pippa’s palm never moves from its new favourite spot, even when they see Ada, even when they walk by the girls. Hecate doesn’t seem to mind one bit, simply nodding, briefly, at Dimity as they pass her. 

By the time Pippa mounts her broomstick, her mouth hurts from beaming.


	17. the world comes back wet and beautiful

Neither of them mention Hecate’s departure as the term progresses.

Pippa never asks why Hecate left without the courtesy of a final goodbye, like the blackbirds that had abandoned their nests in the rafters one February evening. Never asks what drove her to follow such a cataclysmic course of action.

There are many other things that Pippa buries beneath her tongue. She doesn’t tell Hecate about how for months after their separation she could not stand so much as a murmur from the rest of the girls. Could not tolerate the idle chatter and gossip. Hecate used to take a few moments of silence before she spoke, weighing her words, and the jarring polarity made socialising unbearable.

She doesn’t tell Hecate that she’d holed herself up in the library day after day, deteriorating quickly, dwindling away to what could generously be described as skin and bones, though anyone would be hard pressed to find a witness who would agree to such an understatement. That her face became so gaunt and cheekbones so hollow Elodie had cried for weeks. That she’d never slept another night at Cackle’s, in their sanctuary, so plagued by night terrors that Humphrey had been required to collect her every evening. 

And Hecate, for her part, keeps back some truths of her own. She doesn’t share what her father had done when she turned up to his manor in the middle of the school year, broomstick in hand, with red-rimmed eyes and wind-chapped cheeks. 

Hecate doesn’t tell Pippa how she’d climbed onto the roof of the house, barefoot, willing the storm to take her. How the gale had torn at her hair, feet ripped to ribbons, and she’d lost her footing, breaking her wrist in three places. That it had still hurt less than her heart. That nothing could ever bridge the void of what she’d left behind. That she’d considered death might be a mercy.

She doesn’t tell her that she’d spent months of their final year with a tutor who was no stranger to caning her knuckles raw, and that it had taken everything in her not to disobey his commands on purpose. How finally, after failing to eat for weeks, she’d been placed under Ada’s private instruction. And that when her father had died suddenly, that very same summer, Hecate had not cried, but instead thought of Elodie, of Humphrey, with an unbridled jealousy that still brings a stone of guilt to her throat.

Instead, they speak of lesson plans and arrange afternoon teas, bickering over whose bishop moves with the most efficiency. Pippa’s friendship is like glitter, like sand after a day at the beach, like icing sugar. Hecate will never stop finding the reminders of it around her in everything she does, so sweet she can hear honeybees in her chest.

It’s the kind of homecoming that they both need.

One night, they fly to the briny shore tucked beside the Delphia Cliffs, sharing a blanket beneath the stars. The sand is still warm underneath them as they watch the high tide pulled by the moon. Waves lash languidly against age-old rocks.

Pippa is on her front with her legs dangling in the air, her face propped up on her hands. She stares at Hecate with a wide, lazy grin. 

“I visited Norway with my parents some years ago, for the winter solstice. We were fortunate enough to see the Aurora Borealis.” Pippa’s tone is joyful, though there’s a hint of shyness as she tilts her head, regarding Hecate with a strange expression. Hecate watches as she digs her bare toes into the sand at her feet and draws the whispers of tiny flowers in front of her with a curved forefinger. 

Pippa’s mouth speaks before her brain has a chance to mediate and she continues hazily. “They reminded me of you.”

Hecate’s head spins, stunned by the admission. She flinches, looking at Pippa as if her parachute’s just been cut. There’s something murky flickering across her irises. Pippa frowns at her reaction, and then Hecate pulls her knees against her chest with a harsh jerk, awkwardly angling them in front of her body. Smoke and shrapnel fire out angrily before she can temper them.

“Proficient at disappearing without a moment’s notice? Elusive and unreliable?” Hecate grits out, cursing inwardly, self-hatred and fury bubbling up from inside her. Her voice cracks and a noise tumbles out that resembles a muffled sob. “Just as likely not to be there?”

She agonises over her lack of restraint, mortified that her emotions have once again got the better of her. “ _Discipline,_ ” she hears her father say, “ _is the core of the Craft. The careless were burnt at the stake. Let me remind you how that feels._ ” She winces, her hand unconsciously skimming the inside of her sleeve. Her jaw clenches tight and Pippa is gobsmacked, horrified by what’s unfolding.

“ _No!_ Goodness, no— _Hecate,_ ” Pippa proclaims, clambering to position her limbs so that Hecate’s tucked between them, facing her. “Hiccup, not at all. _Never,_ I—” 

Hecate will not lift her eyes. She can’t stomach it, disgust swelling, malformed and acrid, inside her chest.

Pippa reaches for Hecate’s wrists, pleading with her not to retreat to a place where she cannot follow. Her heart is beating rapidly as she fumbles to find the right words.

“Because you’d always said that you wanted to see them.” _Because they were breathtaking._ Pippa releases one hand, bringing her fingertips up to stroke the contour of Hecate’s cheek. Her touch is gentle, barely there, but Hecate’s eyes fall shut for a split second before darting open to lock with Pippa’s. “And because I wished that you had been there.”

It’s more than Pippa meant to reveal, but it’s true. Pippa had wished beyond all reason, all sense, that somehow Hecate would appear beside them, slipping her hand into Pippa’s, as if she’d just popped out to buy bread.

The Hecate in front of her now is different to the girl from her memories. The lines on her forehead have deepened with age, her whole face more expressive than ever. _That’s what happens,_ Pippa thinks, _when you don’t have a voice for so long. You speak with your face, try as you might to conceal it, and those stories play out across the skin._

The ones Pippa loves the most are the ridges that bend by the sides of her mouth. Laugh lines that are hard-won, carved by days spent squabbling over silly things and melting into hysterics. Late nights tucked up side by side with her best friend. _She is more beautiful than ever._

When Hecate finally manages a response, Pippa’s shoulders sag with relief. “I’m so sorry, Pippa,” Hecate whispers, in a soft rush of breath. Pippa isn’t certain whether she’s apologising for what’s just transpired or for something else entirely. She’s not sure that it matters. The way Hecate speaks reminds Pippa of wildflowers catching the breeze. Of Hecate smiling with arms full of irises.

Pippa never asked her mother why year after year those flowers remained on their dining table. Never asked, or desired, her to move them. She knew why, just as she knew why she could never, ever bring herself to throw away that letter. It was only right that Hecate was with them, even if in memory alone.

“Don’t be,” Pippa replies, but it sits heavily between them and she can’t bear any more walls in their way. She pokes Hecate in the ribs, just below her timepiece, and smirks. “I happen to be rather fond of how petulant you are.” Pippa’s lips twitch as she tries to stifle a giggle.

“ _Petulant?_ ” Hecate sulks, the skin between her eyebrows creasing so dramatically that it’s nearly comical. She swats Pippa on the shoulder, tutting as she shakes her head. “I am most certainly not _petulant._ ” The fact that she’s practically pouting rather disproves her stance.

“Well, just another thing we can agree to disagree upon.” Mirth glints in Pippa eyes and she winks, relishing the way Hecate wriggles in annoyance.

Revenge is sweet, but forgiveness is sweeter. More gently, and with added weight, Pippa tries to convey something far more important. “None of us are perfect, Hiccup.”

Hecate's eyes are still narrowed, as if poised with a retort, but whatever she plans to say dies on her tongue. Instead, she wilts, her shoulders sinking. Pain zips through her lip as she snags it between her teeth harshly. She watches a piece of driftwood bobbing in the surf, almost fancying that she can see bow-legged naiads dragging it beneath the surface.

“It’s just that—I thought—” She pauses, sighing with resignation and defeat. It’s humiliating to be this open, but Pippa deserves to know. Her expression is grave, bewildered, and her eyes flicker shut against the rhythm of her heart. “I thought, perhaps, that—that you may have _forgotten_ me.” 

Pippa’s breath catches in her throat. She tilts her head to the side, studying Hecate with disbelief. The ache inside of her chest is slowly giving way to something else, a kind of certainty that she doesn’t yet know how to accommodate. But Hecate’s face is so heartbreakingly raw that it propels her to offer her own honesty in return, even if it’s terrifying.

Very slowly, Pippa reaches her fingers around the back of her neck and undoes the clasp of her necklace. The chain glints in her palm, shimmering like a silver lifeline in the moonlight. She holds it out towards Hecate, making sure that she can see the spiky pendant in the middle. 

With a shuddering exhale, Pippa hovers her other hand above it, pink sparks crackling. The edges soften, smoothing into more delicate lines, until there, tucked into the centre of Pippa’s palm, sits a small, clear star. 

Pippa wants Hecate to understand. To know that she never let go of her, not for a moment, even when her own sanity begged her to do so. She can make out waves crashing somewhere behind her, can feel the salt in the air licking at her skin. It all, suddenly, seems so unbearably dreamlike that she half expects to wake up far away to an empty room.

Hecate is hardly moving at all. Her spine is pencil-straight as she stares at the object in front of her, too floored to trust her voice. She stretches out a tentative finger, brushing it against the tip of the star. 

“You—you keep it with you.” Hecate’s words are claggy as she wrestles to get them out, and Pippa has to strain to hear them. There’s something lurking beneath the tone, something in her choice of phrase that nags at Pippa, calling for closer examination, but she’s too overcome with emotion to dwell on it.

“Of course I do.” Pippa doesn’t mention the time that she'd tried to smash it out of existence, willing it to shatter into a thousand pieces. She ventures that Hecate already knows, anticipated it, expected Pippa to hate her forever. 

The thought tugs a surge of guilt loose in her chest, because Hecate had wanted to give her something in spite of whatever drove her to go. Something intact, real, that would outlive tantrums and lonely nights. That would prove to her that it _wasn’t_ all a dream, everything they had shared between them. _A concrete, graspable apology._

“I’ve kept it with me always.” They both observe the object nestled in Pippa’s fingers. It is smaller than Hecate remembers, but shinier than ever, as if Pippa has polished it faithfully.

“It still glows, sometimes. When—when there’s a storm,” Pippa whispers, watching Hecate’s face carefully as she measures out her own words. “It always has.” 

So many nights Pippa spent calling Hecate’s name with her fist balled against her mouth, chest tight with fear. It had been like throwing pennies into a well and knowing there was no hope of changing things, no matter how much she wished it. Like trying to grab onto smoke.

Hecate rises to her feet, standing almost painfully still. She wrings her fingers together, looking down and then off to the side. Pippa can feel the tension that ripples off her in hot waves.

“I know,” Hecate replies stiffly, her eyelashes fluttering, as if terrified that she’s giving too much away, exposing herself like a fork of lightning breaking across the skies. As if worried that Pippa might see the tree in the forest that Hecate has nailed her heart to, with Pippa’s name carved into the bark. Her nerves are shredded to pieces.

Hecate makes a small, gasping sound, internally berating herself for the interrogation that she fears is coming. Her cheeks are wet and sore and she almost chokes on the feeling of being so undefended, so overwhelmingly candid for the first time in years. She feels like she’s cut out her heart with a bean knife and is holding it out for inspection.

“ _You…_ ” Pippa murmurs breathily. It’s not quite a question but Hecate is so far gone at this point that there’s no use hiding anymore. No use concealing the fact that she’d spent innumerable hours nearly draining her magic when necessity arose, so depleted and exhausted afterwards that she’d been bound to her bed for days. The one and only summoning charm that she’s ever cast.

Hecate flicks her wrist before turning away from Pippa, biting her lip so violently that blood blooms around her teeth. The light dances to life, and it’s only then, after so many decades, that Pippa realises what Hecate must have done.

She thinks back to the countless nights that the star had illuminated her whole room with its radiance, chasing away the shadows and the nightmares. Luminous and beautiful, humming her through the terror. _Alive with Hecate’s magic._ Pippa bursts into tears.

She moves unsteadily to her feet, stumbling up behind Hecate and slipping her arms around her front. Her hands clasp Hecate’s shoulders, in part to steady herself as she begins to quiver. Scalding droplets splash against the nape of Hecate’s neck.

“I could _never_ forget you,” Pippa sobs, with such vehemence it rings through the air around them and is carried by the breeze. She cries like the little girl she once knew, curled under a blanket, pressing her cheek against a jutting shoulder blade. The familiarity scratches at her throat. It’s the mirror of another time, another place, that is still them in every way. 

“You’re still my Hiccup,” she says quietly, begging Hecate to hear the silent promise behind her words. It’s as delicate as gossamer. As sure as the stars.

Hecate’s bottom lip wobbles, shakes, the precarious shelf of a cliff struggling in vain not to fall into the ocean. She manages to spin softly, rearranging Pippa’s limbs until a blonde head rests against her collarbone, her arm hanging loosely around Pippa’s waist. 

She reaches up between them and gently brushes away the tears that have gathered on Pippa’s cheeks. 

She belongs to Pippa, and she’s unable to deny it any longer. 

“Yes,” she nods, a tiny smile creeping across her lips. “ _Yes,_ I am.”


	18. swaying from flower to flower

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is probably a bit clunky but I will come back and polish it at a later date. :)

Pippa is busy affixing some of the first-year students’ projects onto a freshly hung bulletin board in the corridor when she sighs happily, thinking of Hecate’s inevitable reaction. The display she’s chosen is deliberately garish, obscenely colourful and bordered with glitter. She’s going to hate it, which Pippa absolutely loves.

“ _I wanted to be like you,_ ” Pippa had told her, the words true in more ways than she’d ever dare to elaborate on in front of an audience. She knows that Hecate doesn’t believe it, can’t believe it, and that alone is enough to make her want to shower her with compliments every day for the rest of their lives until there’s no mistaking exactly _how much_ she means to Pippa. How much she’s adored.

Pippa can’t quite coax the right things from her throat yet. Had floundered when Hecate scolded her, once again, about those dresses, unable to tell her that she’d hoped against hope that Hecate might ask her, silly, _gloriously smitten_ Pippa, for at least one dance that night. That she’d had visions of two girls swirling together, perfectly matched in silver and gold beneath a sky that was just theirs.

 _One day soon,_ she promises herself, she’s going to be courageous enough to voice these things. To take Hecate into her arms and never let go again.

Pippa’s stirred from her reverie when the troublesome trio slide into her vision, fresh from their potions class, skipping along the halls like two young girls who once owned the night. They are whispering, but not deftly enough to be covert. She hears one of them muttering something about Hecate being heartless and it twists painfully in her abdomen.

She doesn’t correct them. Doesn’t dare, in that moment, betray Hecate’s trust by revealing the true Hecate that she works hard to conceal beneath layers of black silk and starched velvet. The Hecate who is sensitive, and fiercely kind, and much too good to be real. Who Pippa desperately longs to protect and treasure, to _worship,_ though she has little right to wish it.

 _Hecate,_ who brought her parcels of smuggled leftovers which Pippa’s fairly certain were the grand portion of her meal when Pippa was punished for skipping Latin. Who diligently untangled the knots from her hair until the strands glowed like gold. Who held that same hair back when Pippa was sicker than a dog after indulging in too much of Hazelgrove’s stolen port.

 _Her Hecate,_ who buried under the safety of their blankets on that hideous night had murmured to Pippa, again and again, in a voice that had broken Pippa’s heart because it was filled with such uncertainty, “ _I’m not as cold as they think_ ”. Pippa had felt fury like she never had before, resolute in her mission to make those girls pay for hurting her best friend.

And Hecate now, stoic and brave and determined to be brilliant, to show her girls how to be the best witches they can be. Bullheaded, and maddening, and utterly spellbinding. Her mind is still diamond-sharp, her intelligence still breakneck, and she does not suffer fools gladly. Pippa snorts. _She does not suffer fools at all._ But underneath it all she’s sweet, and patient, and _soft_ in a way that's almost painful. Pippa is unspeakably proud that she gets to see her just as she is.

“I would consider,” Pippa says, turning from her task to address the girls, “whether it’s wise to spend your time courting idle gossip and unkindness when these walls have eyes and ears. They may well have some things to say about you, also.”

There’s a twinkle in her eye, and her lips twitch as she raises an eyebrow. The gentle reprimand seems to serve its purpose as the girls look immediately flummoxed, tongue-tied, muttering incoherent apologies as they scuttle away in the direction of the kitchens. 

Mildred lingers, offering Pippa a sheepish shrug with a lopsided smile. “Sorry, Miss P.” Pippa nods at her affectionately, rapping her chin with the crook of her finger, and gestures for her to catch up with the others.

As she runs off, Pippa hears Mildred’s cheerful drawl spilling down the corridor. “She’s right. Besides, HB’s not that bad. Remember when she…” 

Something warm and smooth settles inside Pippa’s chest as the world rights itself.

There’s still a gulf between them. A chasm that opened the night Hecate left and took hold of Hecate’s heart long before that. Yet there remains the blissful tug of something else, sown between them in pale light and shadows, that grows and grows without a sense of an ending.

Later that night, Hecate and Pippa stand shoulder to shoulder in Hecate’s tiny potting shed. They harvest supplies from the vast array of plants and creepers, limbs knocking together as they bend to pull up roots and snip at leaves.

It smells earthy and fresh from the soil and herbs that are crammed tight across the shelves, like the memory of twin beds pushed together. There is something innately magical about the smell of the flowers and shrubs in the dark that pulls at Pippa’s heart.

“These blasted tendrils have really climbed out of control. I haven’t had much time to tend to them with all the incidents of late,” Hecate mutters crossly, tugging at the bases of the weeds. She sighs, a tired expression sweeping across her features that Pippa wishes she could smooth away.

“Well, we’ll have them up in no time. Many hands make light work after all.” Pippa keeps her tone steady and bright as she works, trying to rid some of the exhaustion from Hecate’s frame. After a few minutes, Hecate pauses her ministrations and sets down her gloves.

“Thank you,” Hecate whispers, touching the edge of Pippa’s sleeve right where skin meets satin, “for helping me.” Pippa swallows thickly at the comment, though she tries to disguise it with a nod. Hecate does not like to admit that she needs help and her frankness is almost disarming.

“Any time. I want to be here. You only need to ask.” It is, perhaps, too open of an admission, but it’s true. Pippa will be there, by Hecate’s side, at the drop of a hat, whether she requests it or not.

Hecate frowns slightly, stepping back with a strange look, before picking up her secateurs.

Any doubts Pippa has about being too honest are cast aside when Hecate clips a vibrant dahlia from its stem, extending it towards Pippa with a trembling hand. She blushes, drawing it back towards herself, before stepping forward and arranging it in Pippa’s hair. The action is so tender that Pippa forgets to breathe, staring at Hecate as though she’s witnessing the loveliest of sunrises.

Tears burn at the back of Pippa’s eyelids. Those despicable girls, Hecate’s disgusting father, they tried to break her, but they couldn’t dig out the inextinguishable coal of good in her, burning white and true like a star. She’s _magnificent._

Hecate seems like she’s grappling with something on her tongue, tasting the words before she shares them.

“I just—I want to say that, that I—I never hated you, Pipsqueak,” Hecate says in a low whisper, in the quiet, the small confession winding vines around Pippa’s heart that bloom into perfect petals. She pauses to clear her throat. “Not for an instant. I couldn’t, never, I—”

What was coming next never comes because Pippa hurls herself towards Hecate, burrowing her face into her neck, blindly grasping at the sides of Hecate’s dress as she lets out a watery sob. Hecate’s body is taut, her spine locked straight as she tries to process Pippa’s sudden rush of emotion.

“Oh, darling, I know,” Pippa murmurs against warm skin, her nose nudging against the lobe of Hecate’s ear. Hecate breathes out a noise that sounds like something unravelling inside her, and the hands previously balled into fists at her sides come to rest at the small of Pippa’s back, not pressing, but there nonetheless.

Hecate longs to tell Pippa how she never left her mind. How once, in the depths of her despair, she’d tried to eat a pink, ring doughnut, so cloying and sickly sweet that for weeks afterwards she'd tasted only sugar. How it had _almost_ felt like home, even though she’d felt sick to her stomach.

She wants to explain how many hours she’d wasted obsessively listing every possible ward against pixies, every use of mugwort in her mind. That she’d thought of her students one by one, like Nora Monsoon, who breaks quills every time she fails to secure first place, and Mercanta Mews, who has never in her life opened a book, just to block out her most persistent daydream. 

That it was fruitless, and futile, and now seems so unnecessary. That the guilt of trying to cast Pippa from her head just as she had from her life hurts more than thorns around her throat ever could. 

There are a thousand things she wants to say, to try to spread something sacred over the wound between them, to apologise for more things than she can name or even pin down. _She’s gutless._

She chokes against tears as Pippa cups her face without a hint of condemnation. _Just pure, bright Pippa,_ running her thumbs over Hecate’s cheekbones, wiping the wet tracks. It’s too much to bear.

“I know, Hiccup. I know _you._ You’re dearer to me than magic, and I’m here. There’s no place that I’d rather be than with you.” Pippa doesn’t want to push too much. She knows Hecate might withdraw, or worse, run again, but this time she’s prepared, will run after her no matter how far she goes.

She adds one more thing, just for bravery’s sake, trying to quell the bonfire swelling inside of her. “You'll never be a stranger to me, not ever. I’ll know you for the rest of my life. I swear it.” Perhaps it’s unwise to be so bare, to point a finger at the softest part of her heart and say, ‘ _here, here is the spot that will kill me if you push it,_ ’ but she trusts Hecate not to use it against her.

They are pressed together impossibly closely. Hecate can feel her timepiece, hard and insistent between them. She knows that with just one flick of a particular clasp, one thumb over the right compartment, the locket will open and a vision will spill out. _A blonde-haired witch,_ twirling in a golden dress as she catches snowflakes on her tongue, will swirl above the metal. She measures the weight of this secret against her ribcage.

“Will you dance with me?” Pippa asks, tilting her head to the side as a shy smile works its way across her lips. For one, horrible moment Hecate thinks she’s been caught, that Pippa has somehow read her mind, but she remains steadfast and radiant in front of her.

“But there isn’t any music,” Hecate murmurs, noticing the way her treacherous breath shudders from her lungs. The awkward hammering in her chest sets her on edge, though Pippa regards her with such fondness, such patience, that she feels vaguely faint. Feels lighter than she ever has.

Pippa grins up at her, pressing one hand against Hecate’s sternum. “Yes there is.” With infinite softness, Pippa slides her fingers slightly to the side, placing her ear over the centre of Hecate’s chest until she can hear the thump of her heartbeat. “You just have to listen.”

Hecate exhales sharply, though it swells into a joyous little laugh that nearly knocks Pippa off her feet. One of Hecate’s hands moves to circle Pippa’s shoulder blade, so gently that Pippa feels her eyes growing wet, and their free hands lace together at their sides. It’s achingly soft, almost painfully intimate. Nothing has ever felt so right.

And there, in the ramshackle greenhouse, surrounded by the newness of green sprouts and winding clematis, the scent of sweet peas and the hum of climbers old as trees, Hecate can feel the wishes she might have made on all of those candles from long ago coming true all at once.

It’s dark, but Hecate can see the stars in Pippa’s eyes.


	19. one wild and precious life

There is a definite chill in the air as a gaggle of girls swarm in the courtyard. It’s the last day before half term, and Ada, in her infinite wisdom, decides it’s the perfect time for some frivolities. Textbooks are cast aside in favour of lighter, less taxing methods of education. 

Furniture is arranged outside in the formation of a mock classroom, with a few tables and chairs at the front for the watching teachers.

Hecate is partially leant against a desk, her posture edging on relaxed but not quite succumbing to casual. Pippa sits on top of the wood, her legs dangling elegantly in a way that only she could achieve under the circumstances. Occasionally, her hand reaches out and rests in the crook of Hecate’s elbow, squeezing gently.

Her presence at this event is unexpected, though not unwelcome, and Hecate is too quietly pleased to question it.

Several warming spells have been cast already but the temperature is so frigid Hecate still finds that she needs to tighten her cloak around her shoulders. She offers Pippa a soft, shy smile when the blonde rubs her hands up and down Hecate’s arms, before realising where they are and blushing profusely.

The other teachers don’t seem to mind. In fact, they look rather too smug in Hecate’s opinion, glancing between each other like they _know,_ though about what she’s not entirely sure. 

Ada, in theory, is teaching the girls to conjure birds. It’s a simple spell, one that Hecate deems utterly pointless, and they seem to get the hang of it relatively quickly. So far several sparrows have appeared, along with a rather sorry looking pigeon, a ruffled kite, and Mildred’s _godawful_ attempt - an unfortunate ball of feathers that resembled an avocado with wings. They disappear within a matter of moments and it’s all harmless fun.

Which is why, _regrettably,_ Ada only has half an eye on them. The chatter between the adults flows thick and easy, mostly centring around Dimity’s latest escapades. A few times, Pippa tips her head back and laughs, and Hecate finds it almost impossible to keep her eyes away from the expanse of her throat. _She seems like an angel._

Hecate can barely concentrate, let alone contribute anything worthwhile to the conversation, which leads all eyes to snap to her at once when she suddenly speaks. 

“The moon was rather dreamy last night,” Hecate muses, imagining its light sweeping across Pippa’s face, illuminating her bright smile, trailing over her limbs. Her cheeks burn and burn when she realises that she’s voiced the thought out loud. _Thank Merlin that she stopped when she did._

Pippa looks wistful and for a painful beat Hecate wonders if somehow she’s read her mind. “Was it now? In that case, I’m sorry to have missed it,” Pippa giggles, and it twinkles across the space between them. Hecate flushes even more deeply. 

The awkward, floundering expression that pulls at Hecate’s features earns an amused smile from Ada, who wisely keeps it brief enough to go unnoticed. Gwen, unfortunately, did not get the memo.

“I don’t recall asking you to gawp at me,” Hecate snaps, her lips pinching together as she wrings her hands. The withering glance she shoots causes Gwen to splutter uncomfortably, her mouth agape, arms folding across her chest as she scuttles off on a wave of excuses. Hecate sighs, vaguely registering a bird perched on Enid’s sleeve in her periphery.

“There’s no need to be so severe, Hecate,” Pippa chides, rolling her eyes and tapping her wrist. “Gwen was merely—”

Hecate never finds out what Gwen was.

At the same time as Pippa issues her reprimand, Enid lifts her arm. “Look, Millie. It’s a Sagitterian hawk.” Before anyone can do anything - Ada turning sharply, Pippa gasping mid-sentence, Dimity dropping to a crouch with her hands over her head - the bird is in flight, opening its beak and ejecting a jagged metal barb that races straight towards Pippa’s chest. 

_No. Absolutely not. There’s no way Hecate will allow it to happen._

Everything is somehow at once accelerated and in slow motion. Hecate sees Enid’s mouth opening in horror, hands wide at her sides, Pippa’s fingers darting out in front of her, and before Hecate can even think, before she can summon her magic and throw up wards or do something else that would be in any way rational, she launches herself at Pippa, willing her body between Pippa and the missile, cushioning Pippa’s head as they both stumble backwards onto the hard ground.

Pippa’s lungs heave out a croak of surprise as her back smashes into the stony floor, her heart pounding in her ears. A searing pain snatches through her arm where the barb grazed her skin and she releases a watery, blubbery wheeze of relief. Hecate’s weight is pressed against her, a shuddering face tucked against her neck, and Pippa can feel tears dripping onto her collarbone.

Hecate is deafened by the unrelenting terror that still drills through her chest, not even aware of the fact that Pippa is moving underneath her, alive and relatively unharmed. She gags on the torrent of fear that rages at the back of her throat. The blistering pain that webs across her ribs from the collision threatens to rip a scream from her lips but she remains mute, motionless, incapable of distinguishing between reality and her own screeching inner monologue. 

Slowly, it dawns on Pippa where they are, though it changes very little. It’s hard to care that they are surrounded by concerned questions and baffled glances and Enid’s evident panic when she has Hecate so close to her, but she knows that when the adrenaline wears off and Hecate is lucid enough to realise what’s happened she’s going to feel exposed. Instinctively she strokes Hecate’s hair, whispering nonsensical words into her ear. She hazily recognises Ada’s voice asking her if she’s okay but she’s too focused on shielding Hecate to reply.

“Hecate, darling, perhaps we should get up,” Pippa murmurs softly, not loud enough for anyone else but the woman in her arms to hear. She feels a puff of ragged breath against her neck and then Hecate raises her head, blinking rapidly, as if adjusting to the light. Pippa sees the exact moment that Hecate comes to her senses, her spine growing rigid beneath Pippa’s fingers, her cheeks more ashen than ever. She looks so spent that Pippa can almost see through her.

Hecate’s throat constricts, tears stinging at her eyelids as she tries to push herself up with her palms. She can feel eyes on her, beady and probing, scorching holes through her back, digging around for answers that she doesn’t want to give. Her heart beats furiously against her ribs, heat flaring up her neck at the ridicule she fears is coming. Pippa’s arms refuse to let go, encasing her protectively, and she finally dares to look at her face.

She can still hear the rumbling voices all around them, mortification holding her in a chokehold. The urge to bolt is almost overwhelming. She is stricken by her own dramatics in the face of what actually transpired, the tiny flesh wound, though the sight of Pippa’s blood cuts through her sharper than any harpoon. 

Both the bird and the weapon must have disintegrated upon impact, the girl’s magic too amateur to sustain them for long, but Hecate had been too late, _too late,_ to stop Pippa from getting hurt, although the knowledge of what might have happened had she not been there is like a knife at her throat. She wishes the barb had hit her instead, as she'd intended, to spare Pippa from any pain. _She doesn’t care where._

But Pippa’s eyes regard her with so much affection, so much fondness, that it chases away the impulse to run. She’s still propped up against Pippa’s chest, though Pippa has pulled up her torso, effectively settling Hecate in her lap.

“Hiccup, it’s alright.” Pippa looks a little guilty at her slip but the hand on Hecate’s cheekbone, soft and sweet, erases everything else. “I’m alright.” 

There’s a garbled sound as Hecate sags, her body drooping as if the scaffold of her spine has given out. Pippa locks eyes with Ada, shooting her a curt nod, before transferring them away somewhere more private.

They end up on a small but comfortable sofa in Hecate’s room. It’s dimly lit, a few candles casting shadows against the pair as they adjust to their new surroundings. Morgana purrs somewhere nearby. Hecate looks worn down, defeated, like she’s desperate to flee but has discovered there’s no place left to hide that will not inevitably contain Pippa already waiting.

At least it’s much warmer inside, though the women hardly notice. Hecate is practically cowering on her side of the cushions, sinking into the fabric as if it might camouflage her existence. Pippa circles her wrists with gentle hands, trying to bring her closer, but Hecate pushes her back with force. It’s easy to forget how strong she is.

“ _No,_ Pippa. You’re hurt. We need to—” Hecate protests, her brow furrowed, and something sparks dangerously inside of Pippa at the sight of her worried expression.

Pippa wields all of her might, shoving Hecate backwards until her shoulders smack with a thump against the arm of the chair. Hecate’s eyes widen, confusion clouding her face as she wrenches herself upright. Pippa sees the momentary resemblance to Lot’s wife, frozen into a pillar of salt, stopped dead in her tracks.

“Pippa! What the—” 

“You are monumentally bloody _stupid,_ ” Pippa roars, cutting Hecate off, the sweetness in her features giving way to something far more primal and searing. She is stunning and furious, vibrating with energy.

Hecate’s eyes are jet black, darker than Pippa has ever seen them, swarming with anger. Not at her, Pippa knows that, but at herself. She is embarrassed, humiliated, and more than that, she’s terrified.

“I’m sorry that I wasn’t fas—” Pippa jabs Hecate in the chest with a pointed finger.

“You could have been _killed,_ Hiccup! _Killed._ Thank Goddess that Enid’s clearly not been paying attention to Ada’s instruction.” That’s true. Whether or not Enid is truly in attendance during any of her lessons depends on one’s point of view.

“How _dare_ you step in front of me like that? You _total_ idiot. As if it wasn’t bad enough that I already lost you once, I nearly had to see—” Pippa stops her tirade, breathing deeply, trying to anchor herself to the space she’s in and not dive headfirst into an abyss, though she’s failing rapidly.

“You didn’t even _think_ about leaving me behind, I suppose, but of course, why change the habit of a lifetime?” Pippa seethes, though she regrets the words as soon as they’ve passed her mouth, even as they form on her tongue, in fact, though she’s powerless to stop them.

Hecate is weeping. Not just crying, but pouring out full-blown guttural sobs that ricochet off the plaster walls and rumble through Pippa’s body. She cannot bear it when Hecate cries, she never could, because when she finally succumbs it’s as if the whole world’s loneliness is escaping from inside of her. It’s the sound of a galaxy breaking.

“I didn’t mean that, Hiccup,” Pippa says desperately, reaching to take Hecate’s hands. “Please forgive me. I truly didn’t.” She gathers Hecate against her as tightly as she can, until there is no more space between them, no room for any foolish words to take root.

Cradling Hecate’s fingers in her own, Pippa leans forward until their foreheads are pressed together. “I just—why did you do it?” Neither of them really knows if the question is about this or something else altogether, but Hecate replies honestly, in the best way that she can.

“I did what was necessary.” It’s an answer that resounds far beyond the events of the day. That harks back to the time a girl, so in love and so convinced that she might ruin the only goodness she’d ever known, packed up her suitcase and vanished into the night sky. It’s the most palatable version of the truth that Hecate can bring herself to offer.

Pippa regards her curiously though the hold on her hands becomes firmer. It sends Hecate’s nerves through the ceiling. There’s a real possibility that she’s revealed too much, or not enough, or botched things so badly somehow that this, right here, is the end of it all. The moment that everything comes crashing down around her yet again. She licks at her lips, her throat so dry a river of water couldn’t quench it. 

Pippa lets go of one of her hands and Hecate feels her worst fears being confirmed, her most secret hopes dying in her chest. But then there’s a dull, thudding sensation that jolts her out of her spiralling reverie as Pippa lightly hits the back of her head. Pippa laughs, leaning up to kiss Hecate’s forehead and the combination of the sound and the action realigns the world.

“You’re dense as old Rudge’s ghastly poundcake, and _twice_ as insufferable,” Pippa sniffs, swatting at her eyes. She laces her fingers through Hecate’s, softening her voice. “Don’t you ever do that again.”

Hecate doesn't reply. She can’t, not when it means making a promise that she can’t keep. _Not when it’s Pippa._ Instead, she skims her fingers over the patch of sleeve just below Pippa’s wound, magic sparking as she heals the gash as tenderly as she can. She looks up at Pippa as if trying to cement the image of the blonde’s face in her mind forever, just in case.

Answering a question that wasn’t voiced but is asked all the same, Pippa strokes Hecate’s chin. “I’m not going anywhere, Hiccup.” The sentence pulls at her own regret, her own deep despair, her failure to let Hecate know exactly _how much_ she meant to her all those years ago. She won’t make the same mistake ever again.

A little while later, they lapse into a comfortable silence as Pippa stokes the fire in Hecate’s room and they sit curled up beside each other, drinking sweet arrowroot tea and nibbling fig biscuits.

“I told Ada it was a spectacularly stupid spell,” Hecate mutters, eventually, her tongue flicking out to wet her lips in disdain. “Enid needs to apply more effort to her academics and spend less time daydreaming.”

Pippa snorts. “Try not to be too hard on her, Hiccup.” She casts Hecate a sly look from the corner of her eye. “Remember when you turned Rosalind’s nose green because you mistook powdered fennel for pondweed?”

Hecate tuts indignantly, her chin jutting forward. “Admittedly, that was not my finest work. But as you _well_ know, they were in the wrong vials. It’s hardly my fault that Miss Mayflower was so dire at labelling,” Hecate retorts, her folded arms doing little to hide the fact that she’s amused.

“Oh, I certainly recall you claiming that,” Pippa grins, working Hecate’s fingers between her own.

Hecate offers her a conspiratorial glance. “Besides, I still maintain that it rather suited her.” Pippa arches a perfectly sculpted eyebrow and then laughs, her nose scrunching, small and dainty like a buttercup. It nearly stops Hecate’s heart. She wishes she could catch Pippa’s smiles and her laughter and place them in mason jars, like they had done with fireflies so long ago that it feels like a dream.

A shadow falls across Hecate’s cheeks as she regards Pippa more seriously, her mouth once again bone dry. “Pipsqueak, I—” Her words trip out almost timidly. “We’re going to be okay, aren’t we?”

Pippa’s eyelashes are wet. “ _Always._ ”

She rests her head against Hecate’s chest, clinging to the side of her dress, curled and certain. Her eyes finally take the time to appreciate the details of Hecate’s room. It’s less black than she’d imagined, filled with muted tones of grey and charcoal. Intricate diagrams and beautiful watercolours adorn the walls, and she marvels that some of them are unmistakably Hecate’s designs. It’s cosy, and snug, and so _Hecate_ that she feels slightly woozy.

The pulses of their wrists beat against each other, fingers caressing over knuckles, and Pippa’s eyelids feel very heavy. The last thing she notices before her mind begins to drift is an object on Hecate’s mantel that sticks out like a sore thumb in the practical setting.

A photograph, in a magenta frame, that once sat in the centre of their shared table before it disappeared with Hecate into the darkness. Two girls with their arms slung around each other, grinning happily. Humphrey’s hands are perched on Pippa’s shoulders and his chin rests on the top of her head. Elodie’s tucked behind Hecate, her slender arms circling the girl’s neck, smiling wider than Pippa ever remembers. 

_Their family._

When Hecate wakes in the morning, her unpleasantly stiff back and the twinge in her neck do not bother her at all. Not when Pippa is draped across her, fast asleep, so serene and peaceful that it brings tears to Hecate’s eyes. Not when, to her complete amazement, they are still holding hands.


	20. a silence in which another voice may speak

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope this chapter doesn't disappoint! Let me know what you think but I'm super anxious about it so please be kind. :)
> 
> Thank you to whoever left me a lovely ask on tumblr - I accidentally deleted it but it means a lot to me. <3
> 
> Happy early Christmas/holidays, everyone. :)

Hecate’s eyes twitch open and she squints against the darkness. Her mind is hazy, struggling to process the faint noise that she’s sure disturbed her slumber, but it’s lost against a backdrop of far louder sounds. The storm outside is horrendous and she tuts when she thinks of her likely drowned beds of lettuces and radishes. 

She rolls onto her back, listening to the gale whipping around the walls of the castle. Mildred and the other girls, she hopes, are sensible enough not to venture out in such conditions, though anything is possible with those troublemakers. She’ll have to set about enchanting the locks tomorrow, although securing the windows is probably a violation of fire regulations. She sighs.

There it is again, that sound. Hecate sits up, pushing back the covers and concentrating as hard as she can. 

At first, she thinks it might be a mirror call. It’s breathy, almost human, and somewhere, in the depths of her soul, something stirs. _She knows that voice._ Knows it better than her own, in fact, and it’s not coming from anywhere outside at all, but from inside her head.

Pippa is calling her. She can make it out more clearly now, more distinctly, and the syllables of her name dance through the walls of her skull like strings tugging at her body. 

It’s not the first time that she’s heard Pippa’s desperate pleas invading her mind. Truth be told, she’s heard them for nearly thirty years, every time a storm rolls in. It must be some unintended result of the spell she cast on the star, though how it happened or precisely what it is Hecate’s not sure.

Hecate knows how frightened Pippa is of storms, even to this day. Remembers only too vividly how it was that she and Pippa came to be friends in the first place.

This time, she decides, despite all of the hair raising on the back of her neck telling her that it’s a bad idea, that everything will turn to ashes, that the friendship she’s worked so hard to rebuild might disintegrate entirely, Hecate is going to answer.

Because Pippa _asked._ Because Pippa _needs_ her. Because, _just perhaps,_ this thing between them is not actually so fragile after all. Pippa has proved her loyalty and commitment to their bond over and over, and really, _hasn’t she always?_

The least Hecate can do is offer the same.

She remembers the lashing she received when she arrived at her father’s part way through the school year, hair matted from the rain with a broken broomstick trailing behind her. She realises, now, that you can never truly run away. That things have a way of coming back to you, no matter how hard you try to keep them at arm's length.

This is not only a chance to make things right, but an opportunity to face her demons once and for all. Willing her hands to stop shaking, she slips out of bed, pulling on a thick cloak. It is time, Hecate thinks. _It is time._

When Hecate arrives outside Pippa’s room, just under and hour later, her confidence falters. She hesitates before knocking, staring at the maple wood of the door with trepidation. Things suddenly seem much more complicated. She does not dare to presume that her presence is welcome enough to let herself in, but if she’s _wrong,_ or simply going bonkers, she dreads waking Pippa. 

Sucking in a sharp breath, she raps on the door faintly, allowing her knuckles to connect just twice. _A reasonable compromise,_ she hopes, though her face feels clammy. 

This isn’t just a bad idea, it’s a _terrible_ one. Her _stupid_ heart.

There’s a muffled rustling from inside and then the door swings open, revealing a startled Pippa. Her eyes are red-rimmed and the skin under them is inflamed, caked with a thin sheen of salt. Hecate barely manages to look at her before she ducks her head awkwardly, opting to stare at the ground instead. She spies Pippa’s bare toes, pristinely painted with a familiar pink varnish, and the sight brings a lump to her throat.

“You came,” Pippa whispers, the awe in her voice impossible to miss, even for Hecate. 

Pippa stands so still that Hecate begins to wonder if she’s an illusion, if this is really just a dream after all. When she finally meets her eyes, however, a small, delighted smile forms across Pippa’s lips and she knows that nothing, not even a vision, could be so beautiful.

Hecate is suddenly very aware of her own haphazard appearance. A slightly imperfect drying spell, betraying her nerves, has left her braid wavier and windswept, like when they were girls. If a flock of birds flew out, she wouldn’t be surprised. 

“Of course I came,” Hecate replies, shifting her weight uncertainly between her feet. She snags her lip with her teeth before releasing it and regarding Pippa earnestly. “You called for me.”

Pippa doesn’t question what she means. Instead, she lets out a keening wail, pulling Hecate inside and throwing her arms around her neck. She burrows a cold nose beneath Hecate’s ear, taking in as much of her as she can, like she’s just escaped a burning building and can finally remember fresh air. Hecate doesn’t dare to breathe. “ _My Hiccup._ ”

Rocking back onto her heels, Pippa stretches away just far enough to observe Hecate in the dull light. Her plait is curling at the ends and around her ears, and tiny beads of water are speckled across her eyelashes.

Pippa draws in a breath. “You look—” Pippa beams, so widely that it steals her sentence.

An eyebrow lifts at Pippa’s sudden lack of speech. “Bedraggled?” Hecate huffs with embarrassment, trying to smooth her hair.

Pippa catches her hands, stilling their movements. “ _Gorgeous._ ” Pippa looks shy at that, her eyes glancing downwards before they dare to realign with Hecate’s. Hecate swallows thickly, muttering something unintelligible. She lets down her hair, finishing her drying spell and combing through it with her fingers.

“I—I wasn’t sure if I’d got it right, turning up unannounced.” Nerves ripple off her so tangibly that Pippa desperately wants to make them stop. “I hope you don’t think it too much of an imposition.”

Pippa’s eyes glisten with tears. “Oh, _Hiccup._ You—”

Whatever she was going to say is lost as a roll of thunder claps through the room. Pippa squeaks, helplessly flinging her arms around Hecate again, clutching her as tightly as she can. 

“You’re safe, Pipsqueak. I’ve got you.” It’s a deliberate echo of another night just like this one that Hecate prays will provide some comfort, some solace. Will remind Pippa that they’ve been here before, many times, and made it through every one of those storms. Hecate strokes the slope of Pippa’s back, rubbing gentle pressure over the notches of her spine.

After a time, Pippa tilts her head, her tears slowing. “Hiccup, I just—will you stay?” It’s spoken so softly that Hecate isn’t sure if she’s imagined it. More than once she has heard something painfully similar in her dreams and woken to find emptiness. But something skirts the edges of Pippa’s eyes and she appears like someone who just barely dares to hope, to _want._ Despite the hurricane in her chest, Hecate nods.

Once her heavy cloak finds a spot in the wardrobe, Hecate glances down self-consciously at her attire. In her haste, she neglected to change out of her sleepwear, a fact that is now woefully apparent. A rosy blush licks at her cheeks as Pippa’s eyes sweep over her silk pyjamas. 

Wordlessly, Pippa holds out a hand and leads them towards her bed. There’s still a chill in Hecate’s bones from her unpleasant flight and as she slips beneath the fleece of the blankets warmth finally begins to spread through her limbs. It’s comforting. Pippa’s presence beside her, in her pale pink nightdress, is so beautifully _right_ that she worries she might cry.

For a long time, neither of them says anything at all. They are pressed together very closely, with Pippa’s head finding a resting place against Hecate’s shoulder, and the happiness Hecate feels is almost too much to handle. Tentatively, she seeks out Pippa’s fingers, stroking her thumb over the back of her hand with a contented sigh. 

The low hum of Pippa’s breath fills Hecate’s heart so completely that she wonders how she’d managed to convince herself that she preferred silence. She doubts that she will ever be able to again. 

Outside, the storm softens, petering out into a vague patter of rain against Pippa’s window. They watch, transfixed, as the droplets collect against the glass and trickle down the pane in thin lines. 

After what seems like an eternity, Pippa plucks up the courage to speak. “It’s nice.”

Hecate observes her from the corner of her eye, not brave enough to look at her directly. Everything seems so tranquil, so exquisite, that she fears the moment that it all collapses. _Probably because of her. Almost definitely because of her._

“What is?” She endeavours to keep her voice steady, but no such luck.

Pippa licks her top lip, her hold on Hecate’s hand growing firmer by the second. Hecate submits to the desire to regard her fully, which turns out to be a grave mistake because she notices that Pippa’s cheeks are streaked with tears.

Hecate’s eyes widen. She twists her torso to better see Pippa, ignoring the ache in her back. “Being home again,” Pippa mumbles, sniffing, offering a sheepish half-smile that doesn’t quite make it to the rest of her face.

Finally, like a wave punching against the sand, Hecate _breaks._ It’s been decades in the making, a lifetime, and the explosion hits all at once, reducing her to a mess of howling sobs and excruciating whimpers that constrict Pippa’s chest like a vice. 

“ _Pipsqueak,_ ” she chokes, and then Pippa is in her arms again, her lips pressed tightly against her neck, holding on for dear life. They are both shaking so violently that their twin forms rock together, hands frantically clutching at any solid body part they can find.

“Why did you leave?” Pippa splutters, a ragged whimper curling up from her throat. The _‘me’_ might go unspoken, but Hecate hears it just the same. Guilt grates against her breastbone and she struggles to claw back some sanity. Some sensible direction.

How can she ever explain to Pippa that she’d done the wrong thing for the right reasons? That hurting her was the last thing she’d ever wanted? How can she offer anything remotely satisfactory without destroying her own heart in the process? _Without ruining everything, again?_

Any trace of grit deserts her. “I already told you. I didn’t want to get in your way.” 

Pippa swats at her eyes, anger overtaking her features. “ _Stop it._ Just stop. Don’t lie to me again. _Why?_ ” She’s still trembling, even as she juts her chin in demand.

Tension corkscrews up the length of Hecate’s spine. Her jaw wobbles as she opens it to respond and she has to slam it shut again. She won’t deceive Pippa a second time, hates herself for doing it even once, but telling the whole truth is also not an option.

“I was afraid,” she whispers, an admission that feels like too much even though it offers so little. Even though it still hides so many things that she cannot possibly give name to, will not speak out loud. 

_I was afraid that my darkness might hurt you. I was afraid that I had to protect you because in the end the storm turned out to be me._

Pippa's hand curls against Hecate’s hipbone and Hecate begins to sob even harder, with more force. It’s the sound of a woman shattering into girl-shaped fragments. “I thought you’d be better off without me.”

“Without you? How could _anything_ possibly have been better without you?” Pippa’s voice is weak and spindly. Ruddy blotches mar her face and sorrow radiates from the hollows beneath her cheekbones. 

Nausea claws at Hecate’s stomach. “Pippa…” Her brain ceases to function and she fails to come up with anything worth offering.

“Hecate. Tell me the truth.” Pippa’s fingers squeeze tighter, more insistently. Her free hand laces with Hecate’s own fidgeting one. 

There’s very little room to manoeuvre. Drawing in a breath that has to get her where she needs to go, Hecate breaks Pippa’s gaze, focusing on her lap.

“There is— _poison_ in me. Everything, everywhere, I— _my mother,_ she—” Hecate shakes her head, blinking against a fresh set of tears. “I can’t care for anything without destroying it, and you have to understand, I couldn’t—not when, not when it was _this,_ Pipsqueak. Not when it was _you._ ”

She gasps as she finishes, desperately trying to quell the rising terror that snares her organs, compressing and compressing. She swallows a helpless cry, her head still moving back and forth in a rhythm that she can’t control.

“ _No,_ ” Pippa almost growls, sealing their foreheads together. “ _Enough._ Enough blame and enough penitence. You’re wrong. So, unbelievably, wrong. You are the kindest, most beautiful person I’ve ever met, Hiccup.”

Hecate releases a self-deprecating chuckle that is no doubt about to form into a protest but Pippa barrels on. “You think somehow that you deserve all this pain, all this guilt, but you don’t. You _don’t,_ and I—”

“No,” Hecate spits, her ragged breath warm against Pippa’s face. “Don’t forgive me, Pippa. I can’t bear it.”

The look Pippa gives her is so tender that Hecate has to resist the urge to snatch up her broomstick and flee. “Oh, darling. There’s nothing left to forgive.”

Pippa drops one of her hands and her fingers thread through Hecate’s hair, long nails scratching against the nape of her neck. It’s intended as a gesture of comfort but it just seems to distress Hecate even more.

“You don’t mean that,” Hecate gulps, pressing a fist against her mouth, trying to stop the world from caving in. 

“ _I do._ ” It’s an absolution that stuns Hecate. The years of dread, heartache, revulsion, all fall away in just two words, two syllables, two bright, wet eyes. But Hecate can’t accept a pardon that she doesn’t deserve.

“You wouldn’t, if you knew.” It crawls out unsupervised. _Ill-formed and unwise._

Pippa’s brows knit together. “Knew what?”

Hecate grimaces, stepping over the question. She extracts herself from Pippa’s hold, pushing away her hands. “Pipsqueak, I don’t—I think, perhaps, it might be best if I go.” Her voice is tinny, echoing in her ears like someone else is talking.

Pippa grabs Hecate’s wrists, pinning her in place. “Are you completely mad? Don’t you _dare_ move a muscle, Hecate Hardbroom, or so help me.” She is livid, the mere suggestion that Hecate is going to disappear again swelling malignantly inside her.

“Pippa, I don’t think—you don’t underst—”

“Stop patronising me! What could possibly be any _worse_ than thirty years of feeling like I somehow wasn’t good enough?” Pippa snaps, more furious than Hecate ever remembers, at least directed at her. “If you’ve got something to say to me then say it. I’m tired, Hecate. So tired of it, and I won’t do it anymore. I _can’t._ ”

Hecate’s eyebrows shoot up, horror pulling at her features. Her jaw hangs open, perspiration creeping down the base of her back.

The words ‘ _not good enough_ ’ flare through her, sending everything else up in flames. There’s no way that she can leave the scene when Pippa’s trapped in the wreckage. If it means saving Pippa, she will step inside the burning building even if she doesn’t make it out. 

The only avenue left is the unthinkable. Her eyes sting. She might as well get it over with, there's no point delaying the inevitable.

 _This_ is it. _The end._

“Pippa, no. _No,_ I—” Hecate’s shoulders sag limply as shame grows hot and thick in her chest. She bows her head in defeat.

Putting more space between them, Hecate swivels, holding out her hand and turning it palm up. Her knuckles quiver. She needs Pippa to understand and she has no other choice. “I’m so sorry, Pipsqueak.”

With a small cry, Hecate pinches her eyes closed. Pippa can only watch, engulfed in confusion, as Hecate flexes her fingers, readying for the point of no return.

And then, accompanied by a heartbreaking sigh, Hecate’s hand jolts, flying open. Immediately, there is overpowering light everywhere, the image of fire illuminating every corner of the room and in the middle of it all, at the very centre, is a vision of Pippa as no more than a girl, her head tipped back in laughter, eyes bright and shining, overwhelming everything else. 

_Felicium._

Pippa’s mouth falls open, her throat painfully tight as her eyes take in the sight before her. Finally, _finally,_ she sees things with the purest clarity, as if everything up until this moment was in black and white and she’s only now experiencing colours in all their glory. Hecate drops her wrist, her arms hugging her knees to her chest, but the image remains.

Pippa can’t look away from the picture in front of her. It’s so surreal that she doesn’t dare to blink for fear that she’s going to wake up alone beneath her covers, a tear-stained pillow next to her face.

“ _Hecate,_ ” she croaks, astonishment submerging the name so entirely that it tastes like buttercream on her tongue.

Hecate will not meet Pippa’s eyes, even when the blonde manages to tear her gaze away long enough to regard the woman beside her. Her head is dipped, brows furrowed in anguish as she sobs and sobs, and she seems so small and delicate that Pippa curses herself for pushing too hard, too harshly, even as her heart sings behind her ribs. 

Hecate fears that she might never, ever, be able to look at Pippa again. She feels so raw and exposed, like she’s wrenched open her chest and shown her miserable excuse for a heart, flapping and writhing in revolting candour. 

There’s no use in keeping anything back anymore. Hecate’s eyelids droop over unfocused, sodden eyes. “I left because I loved you,” Hecate rasps, her face contorted in utter desolation, digging her nails into the skin at her kneecaps. Her voice is soft and frightened, her words lilting into a whimper. “Because I _always_ have. I’m sorry. I’m so _sorry,_ but I can’t help it, I can’t stop it, I—I fear that I will be in love with you until I die.”

She folds forwards with a grotesque moan, but then Pippa’s gentle hand is underneath her chin, lifting it, bringing Hecate’s eyes up to see her own wet cheeks. Pippa lets out a sound that sits snugly between a sob and strangled relief. 

“Oh, _Hiccup._ What am I going to do with you?” Pippa swipes her thumbs over Hecate’s tears, cradling the sides of her face. “You silly, _silly_ witch.”

Hecate’s heart stops in her chest, rejection simmering ugly and wild inside of her even though she expects it. Even though she’s heard Pippa’s scorn in her mind a thousand times over.

“ _Hecate,_ ” Pippa says, with more conviction in her voice, a growing smile taking over her whole being. She very nearly laughs as joy whizzes through her body, potent and weightless. “ _Hiccup._ ”

Hecate can’t understand why Pippa is grinning and grinning, her face wide and open and more breathtaking than Hecate has ever seen. Why Pippa is gazing at her as if she is everything. 

“ _Look._ ” 

Against her better judgment, Hecate does look. She looks as Pippa flips her hand over and throws it into the air, sending bright sparks across the room. Looks as pink light spreads out in all directions, glittering and ethereal. Looks as Pippa's magic joins Hecate’s, pulsing and merging, until Hecate sees another face, young and unguarded, smiling a blissful smile, appear next to the image of Pippa. 

It’s _her._

Something catches in Hecate's throat, a wail, perhaps, or a whimper, crawling around as it tries to take root. She wets her lips, shaking her head once and then again, turning to regard Pippa with bewilderment. 

It’s too much. Hecate can’t fathom it, can't bring herself to believe that what she’s witnessing is real, but Pippa’s laughing, and crying, wheezing out air and hugging Hecate so fiercely that there’s no space left between them. No secrets, anymore, to wedge them apart.

She chokes at the wonder of it, the familiarity and the strangeness. Before long Hecate is weeping harder, her shoulders quaking and her mind reeling as she clings to Pippa, anchoring herself to the one thing that she knows to be absolutely true. Pippa runs her fingers through Hecate’s hair and then, softly, takes her face in her hands.

“It’s you, Hiccup, my happiness. Just you, and you are magnificent,” Pippa beams, her eyes glistening as liquid pools against her lashes. “I’m so _very_ in love with you. I always have been.”

Hecate is completely still in Pippa’s arms, paralysed by the emotions that stomp through her chest. The reality of having everything that she’s always wanted and never knew she could have within her reach, right in front of her and inside her, is too all-consuming to comprehend. It’s not possible, _surely?_

_But what if it is?_

She’s still sifting through the pieces, shaking her head, when Pippa dips her chin, hesitating just before her mouth meets Hecate’s.

“ _Please,_ Hiccup, please may I—” And finally, _goddess, finally,_ Hecate rocks forwards, pressing her lips against Pippa’s in blind delirium. It’s soft at first, almost chaste, until Pippa opens her mouth with a gasp and then it’s _them,_ together, sealed in communion, tugging each other closer and closer as their images hover in the distance.

Hecate tastes heady and herbal, like oranges and cloves, like a swirling concoction of the earth’s secrets that Pippa can’t get enough of, will never get enough of, especially when she can feel Hecate smiling, can feel the glorious laughter bubbling up and spilling out from Hecate’s lungs.

One of Pippa’s hands threads through Hecate’s hair, the other gripping the collar of her nightshirt as she kisses her and kisses her and kisses her again. It’s slightly messy, their lips wet from tears that add salt to equation and they’re both grinning so much that they can barely connect without bumping noses or teeth, but it’s more perfect than Hecate ever dared to imagine.

Hecate’s fingers skim Pippa’s neck, covered by curls, stroking the smooth skin that she finds there. Every one of her nerve endings tingles with static. Pippa tastes like candy floss and sugarplums, like peaches left in the sunshine, and Hecate’s head spins and spins with each heavenly brush of her tongue. 

When they break apart, Hecate’s lips are full and rosy. Her cheeks are stained like Pippa’s fingers from Rudge’s pies and her eyes flit aimlessly as if she barely knows up from down. Pippa suspects that her own appearance is just as unkempt, a thought which sends a thrill down her spine. 

At some point whilst they were otherwise occupied, their charms fizzled out, leaving the room much darker. Pippa, however, feels so much light inside of her that she wonders if it’s possible to die of euphoria. If she can channel the sensation into something external. 

Hecate must have a similar idea because all of a sudden it’s raining light inside Pippa's bedroom, golden and incandescent, luminous strands falling like the bright locks of Pippa’s hair. It’s mesmerising, but not as mesmerising as the bashful, joyous smile that blooms on Hecate’s face. 

“I love you,” Hecate whispers, as if she’s been harbouring it just on the tip of her tongue for years, because she has. 

“I love you,” she repeats, over and over, as if now that the floodgates have opened she can’t stop, won’t stop, won’t say anything else ever again. “ _I love you, I love you, I love you._ ”

Gold shimmers fall around them, catching in their hair and sticking to their clothes, until nothing exists but tiny particles of light knocking into each other and merging, until their bodies orbit like two stars bound together through space and time.

Any thoughts that Pippa has about _fucking Hecate to smithereens_ will have to wait because suddenly Hecate is on top of her, eyes black as coals, and she’s pressing Pippa back into the bed, hands sliding beneath satin to skim across her stomach, her ribs, the base of her spine.

“Is this okay, Pipsqueak?” Hecate pauses, bracing herself on her arms over Pippa so that she can scan her face for any signs that she’s mistaken, that she’s got this wrong. 

“Yes,” Pippa murmurs, trying to catch her breath, not really able to keep a handle on any other thought that isn't working out how to feel more of Hecate’s flesh against her. She smudges her lips against Hecate’s, tangling a fist into her waves and licking into her mouth, swallowing the hoarse whimpers that trickle out from Hecate like starlight. “ _Yes._ ”

Hecate’s head dips lower, sealing wet kisses against the hollow of Pippa’s throat as cool fingers dance over the curve of her waist. No one else has truly touched her before Hecate, Pippa realises, marvelling at the way that her hands somehow go beneath her skin, blending them, souls melding and binding and secretly vowed to each other long ago. She’s never felt as alive or as safe as she does right now.

Hecate worships her, devours her, as if she’s paying penance to Pippa’s body and praying against her. Pippa feels her bones, her muscles, every second that they spent apart, all dissolving under the incantations of Hecate’s lips, her heavy breaths, her tiny moans as she tastes Pippa’s skin and then slides down to taste _Pippa,_ hair spilling wildly against tanned thighs. 

Soon there’s no chance of thinking about anything anymore, just a chorus of “ _please_ ” and “ _always_ ” and “ _Hecate_ ” that fills the room as they make their own magical constellations.

They are more stunning than anything in the sky.


	21. I touch the crosses by her name

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Christmas Eve! :)
> 
> Not sure if anyone will get a chance to read this as I'm sure many of you will be wrapped up festivities, but posting now in case people need some Christmas cheer. <3

At first, Pippa hadn't been sure if Hecate would be comfortable divulging their relationship to their colleagues. Not that she'd expected any kind of grand announcement, but sleeping in Hecate’s chambers and coming down to breakfast with the pressure of establishing an elaborate ruse had been a less than appealing prospect. 

She’d certainly anticipated that Hecate would be reserved about it in front of their students given her intense need for privacy. To Pippa’s delight, however, she’s made no move to conceal anything, which warms her to the bone. Quite the opposite, in fact. Hecate has been nothing but open and demonstrative, almost giddy, like she still can’t believe it. _Still can’t contain her joy._

It makes Pippa feel incredibly special, the way Hecate greets her and peeks at her across the room as if she’s witnessing a miracle. The way she links their arms together no matter who is around, clutching her hand as they walk through the gardens at twilight or through the corridors at Cackle’s. 

She’s frequently splaying her fingers against Pippa’s waist, steering her around corners or into nooks to steal heated kisses from her lips, blurring the lines between them. It’s magical. _Exhilarating._ More than Pippa ever hoped for, and she’s overcome by the enormity of the love that she feels for Hecate, the growing bliss that expands and expands every day.

One evening, sprawled out on Pippa’s mattress, she dares to tell Hecate how much her unguarded displays of affection mean to her. How _proud_ she is to be Hecate’s, and to have the world know it. She doesn’t intend for her words to pose any sort of question, but Hecate seems to hear one nonetheless.

She regards Pippa with a wan, sweet smile, brushing pale knuckles over Pippa’s jaw. “It’s just…” She ducks her head shyly, sucking her lip. “I missed so many of your smiles already,” she admits, flitting glittering eyes back up to meet Pippa’s. And what else is Pippa to do, really, but simply kiss Hecate’s little grin until the sun rises?

Hecate, for her part, is trying her best to drown out her self-criticism, to rid any doubts from her mind. She already left once, already broke the most precious thing in the world to her _once,_ and she won’t do it a second time. Shouldn’t even have done it the first. Her heart is so full she fears it might break, but it _won’t,_ she won’t let it, won’t ever put them through what they went through before again.

It’s not completely smooth sailing. Pippa is just as much of a force of nature as she’s always been, has a temper that matches her own stride for stride. She’s still wilful, and dramatic, and often deliberately belligerent. More so, if that’s even possible. She’s still messy, and idealistic, and eats more sugar in one sitting than most people consider sensible to ingest in a year.

There’s no denying that she pushes every one of Hecate’s buttons with alarming finesse. Threatens to flip every notion that Hecate has about _practicality_ and _reason_ on its head with her blithe disregard for tradition. Yet Hecate marvels at it all. _Loves_ it all. She won’t waste a single second of it, will eternally cherish Pippa’s bright, bright light.

They spend most nights under warm blankets with Pippa curled over Hecate’s heartbeat, sipping cocoa made with treacle and just a pinch of chilli powder. Some mornings she wakes early to find Pippa sleeping soundly against her shoulder, ruffled and mussed, and almost too perfect to be real. Like a dream she can touch with her fingertips. 

It’s familiar, and domestic, and absolutely breathtaking. _Their brilliant little world._

Unfortunately, duty does occasionally intervene. The leaves are just beginning to change colour from green to gold when Hecate finds herself called away to a conference circuit that promises to be both academically necessary and appallingly boring in equal measure. 

She’s been gone for almost two weeks and Pippa’s patience with the whole arrangement rapidly began to dwindle on practically day one. Despite their frequent mirror calls and a plethora of postcards scribbled in Hecate’s neat script, Pippa paces the halls at Pentangle’s, almost mad with longing. As nice as opening her eyes to find Morgana nestled beside her head has been, it’s not the same. All of her students have ended up with unusually high marks because she’s so distracted she can hardly function, let alone grade exam scripts.

Even as frustrated as she is, Pippa struggles not to smile when she thinks about the postcards. The images on the front are lovely, but she doesn’t pay them much mind. Not when Hecate writes, “ _I love you, Pipsqueak_ ”, on the back of each one, eclipsing everything else. Reducing her to tears every time the post comes. That’s the side that she pins above her desk, buoying her through the long, gruelling days of marking and meetings. _Empty,_ without Hecate there chiding her for spilling crumbs on her papers and getting rings of coffee on her planner.

It’s near freezing in the grounds despite the rays of sunshine that creep through the clouds. Pippa is in the middle of talking to Nerys Yardley about the staffroom’s latest bout of lunch thefts when the hairs on the back of her neck start to prickle. She registers a movement to her left somewhere in the distance, sensing Hecate before she even sees her. Her heart jumps in her chest.

“It does seem particularly trivial to…” Nerys is still speaking but Pippa’s mind wanders, her mouth beginning to curve upwards of its own volition. She tries desperately to concentrate on her deputy’s moving lips but there’s an almost deafening pounding in her ears.

A balmy feeling spreads through her, overtaking every other impulse. It’s an electric spark that makes its way across her whole body at breakneck speed, stopping her breath short. She must look like a complete idiot because by now she’s grinning so widely that her teeth hurt from the cold. _About as subtle as a neon billboard._ Nerys, who is not totally oblivious, lets her sentence fade into smoke with a knowing smirk. 

Pippa makes a pitiful noise that in no way passes for a word, placing a gentle hand on Nerys’s shoulder. “I’m sorry, excuse me,” she whispers, offering a brief nod before turning more fully to view Hecate, finally catching a glimpse of the woman she loves more dearly than anything else in the universe. 

Tears spring to lap at her eyelashes, stinging her cheeks as the breeze catches them. Hecate stands timidly, slightly unsure, holding her broomstick at her side as she watches Pippa and Nerys conversing. As they turn to look at her, Hecate dips to greet Nerys, before fixing her gaze on Pippa.

When their eyes lock, Hecate’s crease in the corners, the softest of beams dancing across her face. Pippa releases a sob of relief. They are still metres apart, but Pippa can just about see that the tips of Hecate’s ears are pinker than usual. 

Hecate begins to bow, raising her hand to her forehead, but Pippa has other ideas. Before she can even think, before she can even fully process what she’s about to do, Pippa bunches up her dress in her hands, careening towards Hecate with such urgency that she outruns the wind.

Nerys shakes her head fondly and vanishes, flicking her wrist into the air and chanting a few words as she leaves.

Pippa smacks into Hecate at full force, leaping into her arms, her thighs wrapping around Hecate’s waist and fingers sliding up into the neat bun pinned on top of her scalp. She kisses her solidly, frantically, even as Hecate topples, her body not expecting the weight. They collide with the floor in an untidy heap.

Hecate grunts as her breath leaves her lungs, dazed by the sudden impact. “Pippa, _what in the world?_ ” She croaks, stretching her neck, her fingertips resting on Pippa’s shoulder blades as she tries to get her bearings. She squints her eyes, creeping one open. Groans at the stiffness in her back. “I think I may be too old to be swept off my feet.”

“Oh, hush, _you,_ ” Pippa smarts, her words muffled against Hecate’s chest. She glances up, blowing her hair out of her face rather pathetically. It’s all very undignified, and entirely wonderful. 

Summoning the sternest voice she can muster, one usually reserved for Mildred Hubble, Hecate huffs. “You are the most—”

Pippa’s lips form a guilty pout and she appears so doe-eyed and contrite that Hecate cuts herself off. To the surprise of both of them, Hecate starts to laugh. A warm, shimmering sound that floats above them in the grass and rains down over them like a meteor shower. Her nose wrinkles in a way that Pippa finds far too adorable and she can’t resist kissing her again.

“I couldn’t wait any longer to tell you that I love you,” Pippa states, matter-of-factly, her bottom lip popped out and hovering only inches above Hecate’s.

“I quite think this improper conduct for a headmistress, Miss Pentangle,” Hecate croons, but she’s smiling bashfully, her eyes glassy. A cool hand reaches up to smooth over the side of Pippa’s cheek, cradling it like it is a holy thing. Like she’s been waiting to touch Pippa for weeks.

Pippa slips her hand on top of Hecate’s, her eyes narrowing with intent. “I felt Nerys casting a cloaking spell as I was walking over.” She’s not exactly _certain_ of that, but propriety be damned.

“ _Walking?_ ” Hecate snorts, raising an eyebrow, but Pippa tugs her collar and brings their mouths together, sending any plans she had to tease her off into the atmosphere.

It’s hard to be too put out anyway when Hecate’s completely smitten. She still finds herself mesmerised, in awe, that she doesn’t have to hide anymore. Can hold Pippa, and kiss Pippa, and love Pippa freely, without fear or dread. It’s a reality that is almost too much to comprehend, but she refuses to take it for granted for even a moment. 

“I missed you,” Pippa whispers, slightly shakily. She noses along Hecate’s jaw, running her fingers over the bumps of her ribs and working them across until she can grasp the timepiece between them. The dependable ticking has tears pricking at the backs of Pippa’s eyes. 

“Well met, Pipsqueak.” Hecate grins, her hand moving up to press against her forehead, mirth spilling forth like a bag of tumbled gems. At Pippa’s answering giggle, she adds, much more tenderly, “I missed you, too.”

Pippa stares down at her, tangling their fingers together above Hecate’s head on the damp ground. She can hear her students beginning to mill about between classes but she doesn’t budge an inch, cloaking spell or not.

“Well met, Hiccup,” Pippa smiles, sealing her lips against Hecate’s cheek. “Welcome home, my darling.”  
The pure, undiluted affection that Hecate traces across Pippa’s features is so genuine that it’s hard to fathom how she failed to recognise it for so long. To accept it now, for what it is, fills her with the most liberating sense of happiness.

Home. She’s _home._

Just for good measure, and because really it’s the most _sensible_ thing to do, Hecate kisses Pippa. Over and over, in fact, until the mud beneath her has seeped so deeply into her robes that she’s certain even a dozen washing spells won’t be enough to salvage them. _A small price to pay._

Eventually, though it’s some time later, with creaking limbs and telltale swollen mouths that will be hard to disguise, they do make it up from the floor.


	22. announcing your place in the family of things

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy reading whenever it finds you. <3
> 
> This one is dedicated to Mai.

Hecate is, to put it mildly, substantially frazzled. Her frame thrums with awkward tension as she stands on the doorstep, her hand restlessly switching between brushing against Pippa's and tucking itself into her pocket like a pendulum stuck in an infinite loop. She dreads the reception that she will receive from Pippa’s parents who must hate her for her conduct. Sweat beads along her brow and apprehension balls in her throat. She’s already cycled through three outfits and briefly contemplates whether there’s time to change into a fourth.

Pippa has assured her, repeatedly, that there’s nothing to worry about. That her parents had been the ones to extend the invitation, without Pippa's suggestion. Hecate knows Pippa wouldn’t lie to her but she finds it hard to believe, especially when they haven’t been told in so many words that they are… _an item._

Her colleagues and the girls might be one thing, but Hecate is hesitant for the Pentangles to discover their entanglement. It’s only natural that they want what’s best for Pippa, and considering Hecate’s dire behaviour she supremely doubts that they will be enthusiastic about them being together, kind though they are. 

Far too soon for Hecate’s nerves, the door swings open. Her mouth is so dry she nearly chokes, her vision barely registering more than a haze of swimming colours and indistinct shapes. She vaguely makes out Pippa beside her issuing a cheerful hello and there’s a yank on her sleeve as she’s pulled inside. 

_Breathe, Hecate. Remember to breathe._

She just about manages to shrug out of her coat but she’s operating on autopilot, desperately attempting to stop the world from swirling. She hasn’t even succeeded in uttering a single word thus far and she’s nearly suffocated by a rising awareness of how rude and ungrateful she must seem.

Gradually, the picture in front of her stabilises and Elodie is there, in front of her, warm and gracious. She takes the garment from Hecate’s hands, hanging it on a hook next to Pippa’s in the hall. The gravity of the moment almost decimates the bones in Hecate’s legs. 

Elodie looks the same as Hecate remembers, as if she hasn’t aged at all, still as prim and lovely as ever. She sports a simple mauve blouse, the loose sleeves stopping just below her elbows. 

“It’s beyond marvellous to see you, Hecate,” Elodie sings with a smile, her voice as affectionate and sweet as her long-ago gift of cinder toffee. There’s an odd rhythm to her speech, however, notably fast, and her torso jitters as if she can’t keep still. For a split second, Hecate wonders if she might be nervous, though that seems implausible. 

Elodie's hand folds a strand of caramel hair behind her ear and it’s not difficult to spot the fact that it’s trembling. It moves to smooth down the length of her shirt buttons, then to pat Pippa’s cheek, before falling to fidget uneasily at her side. Finally, it brushes against Hecate’s chin tentatively until Elodie seems to reach a decision, pulling Hecate into her arms.

Hecate tenses immediately, her body going stiff, but her fingers flutter politely against Elodie’s back. She hears a distinct sniff and then Elodie murmurs into her hair. “You’ve been very much missed. Terribly, actually.”

Tongue-tied does not even begin to cover what Hecate feels as she fumbles for a reply. In all of her imaginings of this scenario, and there have been many, she never allowed herself to consider the possibility that she would be greeted with such a fond welcome. Such undiluted _acceptance._ She doesn’t understand why Elodie would want her in her home, why she would even be _tolerated,_ let alone _missed._

Her eyes dart to Pippa and all of the answers are somehow there for her to see.

Because this is _Pippa’s_ mother. Because this what it means to be part of something bigger than any mistakes or messes. Because _this_ is what Elodie had promised all those years ago when she’d said that Hecate would always be safe with them. 

Because every year, on her birthday, Hecate receives a bouquet of irises that she knows can only have one sender.

“I am honoured to be here,” Hecate whispers as Elodie shuffles back, praying for it to convey everything that she can’t express. She dares to hope that it does because Elodie’s eyes crinkle, an unmistakable shimmer forming against her lashes, and Pippa’s cheeks look markedly wet as well.

As if unable to stop herself, Elodie staggers forwards and envelops Hecate again with a small sob, holding her more firmly and for much longer. This time, Hecate relaxes into it, squeezing back with as much bravery as she can unearth.

Eventually, Elodie lets go, clearing her throat. She presses a quick kiss against Pippa’s ear, missing her cheekbone, mumbling something about the oven as she dabs at her eyes and drifts off further into the house. 

Pippa pads closer, stepping in front of Hecate. She runs her thumbs over Hecate’s collar, smiling up at her in a strange way that Hecate can’t quite place. “Darling, I—”

“I thought I heard voices,” Humphrey shouts, swinging into view, emerging from the study with a jaunty hop, "but of course, at my age, one can never be sure.” Pippa drops her hands, offering Hecate an apologetic smile before spinning to meet her father’s embrace.

“It’s only when they start asking if they can possess the house that you need to worry,” Pippa chirps, slinging her arms around his neck.

Humphrey roars with laughter, twirling her in the air. “I’ll be sure to tell them your quarters are off limits.”

He turns, with Pippa still half in his arms, until he is facing Hecate. She inhales deeply, ready for admonishment. With her stomach apparently intent on knitting a blanket inside of her, she extends her fingers for him to shake. 

“It’s about time you came,” Humphrey announces, and Hecate’s heart sputters. Her gaze fixes on the door over his shoulder, making a note of any exit point that she might need in a pinch. It seems unlikely that she’ll make it that far without Pippa intervening, but it’s better to map out an escape plan, _just in case._

Humphrey’s eyes, however, twinkle, showing no signs of condemnation. He takes the hand that Hecate is holding out to him, using it to tug her forwards into a tight hug. “I was rather beginning to think you’d forgotten that you owe me a game of chess.”

Hecate releases the breath that she’s been stashing, observing him fully as he steps back. There’s no trace of anger to be found on his face, though there should be. Hecate could at least make sense of that. Instead, her head is fogged with unforeseen elation and muddled perplexity.

“Ready to get trounced again, Daddy?” Pippa’s teasing voice, a honey that coats every surface of the house, is the only thing keeping Hecate grounded. 

Humphrey wags a finger at Pippa. “I’ve a good mind to send you to your room, young lady.” It’s about as menacing as a snail. Pippa clicks her tongue and rolls her eyes in response, insubordinate as always.

“Besides, there are some things you can never really lose,” he utters more softly, looking pointedly at Hecate as if willing her to understand that they are speaking about something far more important than pastimes. “A good game of chess just happens to be one of them.”

* * *

They sit down to dinner shortly after. Hecate has to blink back tears when she sees the vase of flowers that sits proudly in the middle of the table. It’s easy, being with the Pentangles. _Cosy._ They tease, and bicker, and praise flows between them like air. The feeling of comfort that sinks into Hecate's bones is almost dizzying.

Pippa talks animatedly about a radio broadcast that she’d listened to hailing the many hitherto untold uses of bluebells, her gestures becoming more exaggerated as she builds momentum. It’s so heartwarming to hear her impassioned speech, to watch her gushing so ardently over her interests, that Hecate can’t help but brush her pinky finger against Pippa’s. 

The universe grinds to a standstill when, without missing a beat or stumbling over a single syllable as she continues, Pippa takes Hecate’s hand, right there at the table. Hecate freezes, the colour draining from her face. 

“And I was most excited to discover that when paired alongside monkshood…”

Pippa’s voice drifts away in Hecate’s mind as she observes Elodie’s eyes travelling over their joined hands. Her insides seize up and her windpipe constricts with a vengeance. She’s considering snatching her fingers back and burying them beneath the tablecloth, though she worries such an action might hurt Pippa, who seems unaware of what she’s done.

She doesn't have to mull it over it for too long because, to her utter bewilderment, Elodie simply smiles. It’s a genuine smile, the kind that folds down the edges of her eyes and lifts the apples of her cheeks. It also seems to multiply as Hecate stares at her, dampness skewing her perspective and leaving her with double vision.

“That’s wonderful, sweetheart,” Elodie chimes as Pippa finishes, though Hecate doesn’t catch the end. Everything is somehow alright, a realisation that very nearly reduces Hecate to a blubbering mess.

The rest of the meal passes in cheerful chatter. They converse about their students, and Elodie’s greenhouse, and the new influx of bees to Humphrey’s apiary. It’s effortless. _Astonishing._ Throughout it all, as they weave through every meandering change of topic, every pause that they take to laugh until tears stream down their faces, Pippa never lets go of Hecate’s hand.

Hecate, ever the courteous guest, insists on clearing the table. She’s washing the suds from a plate when Pippa sidles up behind her in the kitchen, wrapping her arms around Hecate’s middle and resting her chin against her back. 

“I’m so happy that you’re here, Hiccup.” Hecate grins, sliding the plate into the dish rack and drying her hands with a tea towel. She turns in Pippa’s embrace, linking her fingers behind her waist. There are so many things she wants to say but she can’t quite settle on where to begin.

“I love you, Pipsqueak," she whispers honestly. _That seems like a good place to start._

Pippa surges up with a small whimper, kissing Hecate until there’s not a drop of air left between them.

“I love you, too,” Pippa beams, breathing heavily as they break apart. She nods in the direction of the dining room. “Go and make yourself comfortable, I’ll finish these off. And unsnap a few buttons. Mother said pudding is a surprise.”

* * *

Pippa’s fingers are back in Hecate’s moments later when Elodie bustles through from her trip to the Aga. “I hope it’s still your favourite,” Elodie mumbles briskly, her hands humming anxiously as they set the dish down on the table. She bites her lip, staring at Hecate with Pippa’s shy smile.

The pulse beating against the skin of Hecate’s neck skyrockets. She inhales raggedly, barely able to see anything ahead of her. It’s _pumpkin pie,_ the only sweet dish that she has ever really savoured. Not only that, but it’s Elodie’s homemade pumpkin pie. The notion that Pippa’s mother has taken the time to bake something just for her, has no doubt spent hours making sure that it’s _just right,_ topples over a cauldron of untapped affection in Hecate’s chest.

Sandpaper and cement collect in Hecate’s mouth and she has to push her response out with force. “It is.” Tears collect behind her eyelids, threatening to spill and never stop coming. “Thank you.”

Clearly, her emotional whirlwind does not go unnoticed. “It's only a pie,” Elodie shrugs meekly, her cheeks glowing as if she’s faintly self-conscious. She’s ever humble, but she seems delighted to have got it right and her eyes are welling just as persistently.

“Not to me,” Hecate states, so quietly that she’s not certain that anyone will actually hear her. She sees the wet tracks sliding down Pippa’s face and Elodie dabbing at her eyes, however, and she’s glad, for once, that she chose words over silence. 

“Dig in,” Humphrey winks, motioning for Hecate to cut herself a slice, which she does, "and don’t let Pippa’s fork anywhere near your bowl. You’ll need the sugar because I was hoping after dinner you might let me pick your brain.”

Pippa appears affronted, pouting sulkily. “For your information, Daddy, if I want a bite of Hecate’s pie I shall have some.”

“Oh, I don’t doubt that,” Humphrey mutters with a grin, adding a healthy dollop of cream to his helping. Pippa chokes on the spoonful of dessert that she’s just deposited into her mouth. Heat worms its way across Hecate’s cheeks but she laughs, a real sort of laugh that is carried along on a wave of flustered embarrassment and unexpected relief. Pippa looks like she’s going to drop dead at any second, which somehow only amuses Hecate further. 

“If you’re going to be so childish, Humphrey, at least wait until after Pippa has swallowed.” Elodie crosses her arms with a weighted sigh. “And before you decide to comment on that poor choice of phrasing, I would urge you to reconsider.”

Humphrey holds his hands up in surrender, his lips narrowly suppressing what Hecate imagines is a smirk. “Anyway, as I was saying, Hecate, I would be grateful if you could lend your expertise and help me prepare a new brew to streamline honey production.”

The jovial atmosphere resumes and Pippa and Elodie lapse into a discussion about the upcoming plans for Yule as Hecate chats to Humphrey. “I’m hardly an expert but I’d be happy to assist in any way that I can.”

“Oh, poppycock,” he laughs, sticking his fork into a generous piece of pumpkin. “There’s no need to be so modest. Dee said that your paper on the benefits”—

Something in the room shifts and an icy chill begins to creep up the back of Hecate’s neck. Elodie drops her spoon and it clatters onto the table, causing a patch of pale orange goop to bleed against the fabric. Pippa’s posture becomes rigid and her eyes widen in concern as they settle on her mother, who shifts uncomfortably in her chair. She interjects in a low tone, though she’s too late to prevent Humphrey from continuing, “Daddy, I think perhaps—”

—“of using beetle husks when trying to speed up the process of harvesting—” Elodie grips her napkin with white knuckles, emitting a strangled gasp.

“ _Daddy!_ ” 

Pippa is panting, her tone so pained that Humphrey immediately falls silent. Hecate goes completely still, blushing profusely. Out of the corner of her eye she can see Pippa chewing on her lip, her usually luminous face pallid and contorted into a strained expression.

Hecate had never printed the paper that Humphrey is referencing. Had only shared it, once, at a conference nearly a decade ago. It had been a busy affair and Hecate had found herself daunted by the swarm of people in front of her. How could Elodie possibly know about it, _unless…_

She recalls the sudden, inexplicable calm that had washed over her, giving her just enough strength to take up her place at the podium. The scent of cinnamon and plums that had flooded her senses, easing her anxious heart.

Oh. _Oh._

Humphrey haphazardly pushes his food around with his fork as he realises his mistake, glancing across at his wife, his features taut with guilt. Elodie stares at the tablecloth in front of her, her lips pressed into a hard line. Pink tinges the tops of her cheekbones. They both appear antsy, trading equally uneasy glances whenever Elodie lifts her eyes.

Abandoning his dessert, Humphrey adopts a plastered grin that slices through Hecate like a knife. He shakes his head with an awkward chuckle, clapping his hands together. The gesture is so blatantly performative that Elodie winces. She twists the ring on her finger, her eyelashes casting long shadows over her cheeks. Tears have started to gather along them and Hecate fights the urge to slide back her chair and vanish. 

“Yes, well, ah—I fear I may have let the proverbial cat out of the bag, so to speak,” Humphrey says, in a manner that betrays his nerves with every letter. “Forgive me. I must confess that we may have, shall we say, kept an ear to the ground.” 

Hecate’s chest burns and she feels like she’s going to be sick. _Of course._ Of course they would want to keep tabs on her to ensure that she remained as far away from Pippa as possible, to make absolutely certain that the hurt she somehow manages to dole out in vast proportions would not touch Pippa again. 

The revelation should not come as too much of a shock but it cuts deeper than she cares to admit. Her mouth feels as though it’s packed with styrofoam and she’s struggling to wrestle oxygen into her lungs. 

“I understand,” Hecate whispers, in a voice so tiny and pathetic that she wonders if she’s successfully left already and is speaking into the snowstorm outside. “You felt it necessary because you care about Pippa. It’s only right that you should want to protect her.”

Humphrey snorts, tweaking the bridge of his nose with his fingers and moving his head back and forth.

Elodie, with a weak smile and eyes as wet as the ocean, finally regards Hecate. “No, honey. It was because we care about _you._ ”

Hecate feels like she's been slugged in the jaw. Despite all of the things that have been racing through her mind since Humphrey's admission, this is an eventuality that she did not foresee. Total disbelief pummels through her veins in spades. She is dumbstruck, at a complete loss for words. Pippa squeezes her fingers, brushing her thumb along the back of Hecate’s hand.

“All of your accomplishments are…” Elodie’s voice cracks with an uneven breath, as if there’s not enough room for her tongue to form words. “That is to say—we are so _proud_ of you, Hecate.” 

A dry sob scrapes its way over the smashed glass in Hecate’s mouth, heaving itself out. Pippa brings her other hand over Hecate’s as well, until pale fingers rest between her palms. She begins to stroke a soothing zigzag pattern across her skin.

Hecate has no idea what to do. This is entirely uncharted waters. _Why? Why on earth would they continue to care about her so selflessly when she’d committed the worst sin imaginable? When she’d screwed up so badly she hadn’t even been able to look at her own face in the mirror without feeling utter revulsion?_

“I suppose you deserve to know that—that, well—” Elodie keeps her gaze locked with Hecate’s for less than a second before tilting her chin down and dropping her eyes. Pippa and Humphrey exchange a brief glance, both watching the scene unfolding before them with a mixture of trepidation and fondness. “I’ve collected every journal article that you’ve published, and a few newspaper clippings, and—and attended…” Her sentence peters out as her shoulders slump forwards and she brings a hand up over her mouth. “ _Foolish,_ I know, but—”

Elodie bends nearly in half, the rest of whatever she was going to say ripped away by a small cry. 

Hecate swipes at her eyes, swallowing a bulb in her throat because they still remember her, still know her, still _want_ to know her, even after everything. The information rolls around in her skull like a bowling ball. 

“I’m sorry,” Elodie mumbles with a crumpled expression, her voice thick. Humphrey curls an arm around his wife’s shoulders as she staggers on. “I know we had no right to—”

Hecate stretches across the table, covering Elodie’s clenched hand with her own.

“I’ve made some revisions to my beetle study recently. I’ll have to show you the updated version.” Hecate isn’t sure if her simple offering will allay Elodie’s worries but she gives it anyway, along with a watery smile.

Elodie smiles back, letting out a high-pitched sound that isn’t quite a laugh but bears a resemblance to one. She slips out of her seat, moving clockwise around the table until she’s next to Hecate’s chair. She stoops, wrapping her arms around Hecate’s neck. “I’d like that very much, sweetheart.”

“I believe the word is _'busted’_ ,” Humphrey titters, shredding through the heavy tension that shrouds the room. Elodie straightens, shooting Humphrey a good-natured glare.

 _“‘Busted’?”_ Pippa groans, slapping a hand against her forehead and cringing at her father. “Are you hearing this, Hiccup? _‘Busted’_ , indeed.”

“Well, really. What did you expect?” Humphrey tuts, picking up his fork again. “It’s our job to meddle.”

“I did warn you, my darling,” Pippa laughs, but her voice sounds a bit shaky, like she’s attempting to keep her head above a sea of tears. “Embarrassing parents.” 

“If someone in our family makes a name for herself as a brilliant witch, we’re hardly going to squander the opportunity to watch her shine, are we?” Humphrey delves back into his dessert with vigour, heaping a wedge of pie into his mouth. He finishes swallowing before regarding Hecate with a sheepish grin. “You’re rather stuck with us, I’m afraid.”

“He’s got you there, Hiccup.” Pippa giggles, both of her hands clasping Hecate’s arm as she swivels to press a hard kiss against a notably red cheek.

It reddens further at Pippa’s obvious devotion, but Humphrey appears almost smug, as if he’s known for years, and Elodie looks set to cry again very shortly.

“Fabulous to have you girls back together again.” Humphrey winks at Hecate, a knowing glimmer lighting his eyes.

“More than fabulous. You two need to come home more often,” Elodie simpers, flicking away a tear that glides down her cheek, “especially when there are a few little grandbabies for me to spoil.”

“ _Mother!_ ” Pippa grumbles, but she grins at Hecate, a pure, unadulterated grin that could coax flowers up from beneath the snow and attract moths from every town in the county. 

It makes Hecate think about sappy things, like midnight painting sessions and reading poetry beneath the moonlight with a star illuminating the window behind them. About the future, which seems so abundant with possibilities that she doesn’t even realise that she, too, is smiling.

She _belongs_ with the Pentangles. She always did.

Pippa grins and grins and grins until nothing else remains.


	23. to cast aside the weight of facts

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was supposed to be a shorter part of the next one, but apparently I have no self-control. 
> 
> There will either be 3 or 4 more chapters, depending on how long the next one becomes. The fic has a life of its own, so we shall see. ;)

Yule comes a fortnight later, bringing with it more snow and a mountain of preparations that seem to have no visible end. The students at Cackle’s have already disembarked to their various homes and, though Hecate is loath to admit it, the place feels strange without them. 

She finds that she especially misses a certain young witch with pigtails, who had thought it appropriate, _lord knows why,_ to hug Hecate around the middle when saying goodbye.

 _No,_ she is _not_ getting soft. 

If her hands had found themselves encircling small shoulders and her eyes had welled just a little as Mildred scurried off, it was purely a coincidence, nothing more.

Despite the emptiness of the halls, Hecate’s quarters are not short of noise. Pippa, it appears, is intent on pushing Hecate to the brink of insanity by playing the most obscenely jolly and irritatingly catchy Christmas songs at full volume throughout every room. There is no escaping them. If Hecate has to hear one more crooning voice singing about sleigh rides, she is going to lose the will to live.

Pippa is tapping her fingers along to the beat against the kitchen worktop when Hecate enters. She twirls at the sound of footsteps, her mouth lifting into a blinding smile. 

“There you are, darling. I thought I’d make a start on prepping the ingredients. I hope I didn’t wake you.” She pecks Hecate’s mouth before swivelling back around and digging her hand into a bag of almonds. She picks up a knife and diligently begins to slice them. The blade is far too close to Pippa’s fingers for Hecate’s nerves, but she tries to push that concern aside.

 _Wake her?_ Hecate had practically been heralded from her slumber by choirs of criminally-off-key angels. 

Rather than pointing this out, however, Hecate opts for dodging the subject. Pippa’s good mood is infectious and she can’t bring herself to be too annoyed. 

She saunters over to the coffee machine, relieved to find that Pippa has already brewed a fresh pot. A thin coil of steam spirals up from the warm liquid as it’s added to her favourite mug, and Hecate sends a quick word of thanks up to the gods. She’s going to need reinforcements to get through the morning.

“How long have you been up?” Hecate asks, leaning back against the counter behind her. Two floury handprints are glaringly visible on the mid-section of Pippa’s apron and she imagines Pippa standing with her hands on her hips, probably muttering about the recipe’s instructions. It’s a pleasant thought, and Hecate smiles against the rim of her cup.

“Only an hour or so. Morgana kept pouncing on my feet wanting some company, but you seemed so peaceful we thought we’d let you sleep in.” Pippa hums, sliding the chopped nuts into a mixing bowl.

Hecate watches with wide eyes as Pippa follows this action by decanting half a bottle of brandy into the mixture. 

“Pipsqueak, that seems… _excessive,_ ” she flinches, trying to keep her voice level and failing. Her nose wrinkles and she raises an eyebrow, running her hand through her hair, which has yet to see a brush. 

She tightens the belt on her dressing gown, stepping forwards to get a better view of whatever monstrosity Pippa is concocting in the bowl. Hecate is fairly confident that none of the components have been added in the right order, and the batter appears alarmingly wet for Christmas muffins.

“Oh, hogwash,” Pippa giggles, throwing a currant in Hecate’s general direction. “A little extra merriment never hurt anyone.”

Hecate decides, for the time being, that it’s best not to comment. Experience has taught her that nothing fruitful comes from attempting to interfere in Pippa’s culinary debacles. She takes a last sip from her drink, depositing the empty mug into the sink before looping her arms around Pippa’s waist.

Pippa twists, her tacky fingers darting up to frame Hecate’s face as she stretches up on her tiptoes to kiss her. Her lips taste suspiciously like glacé cherries, though Hecate is too content to care. It’s hardly a suitable breakfast choice but it undeniably beats the flavour of oatmeal. 

Ducking back, Pippa pats Hecate’s cheek, regarding her with a lazy grin. “You can go and get dressed if you like.”

The idea of leaving Pippa completely unsupervised is not one that Hecate relishes. They need to conserve their energy if they are going to transfer to the Pentangle residence without incident, so any use of magic in the meantime is off limits. 

Which ordinarily would be fine, but despite Pippa’s sweet tooth, she is, objectively, _atrocious_ at baking. 

Try as she might, skilled as she is at the most exacting of potions, she can never seem to master it. There’s always a battery of burnt corners or an undercooked middle to everything that she attempts. Occasionally, a random object even somehow slips its way in, unannounced. Hecate’s extinguished several fires already in their respective kitchens, though they’ve been mercifully small.

As much as she wishes for Pippa’s success, will not blot the odds by anticipating disaster, Hecate’s expectations for the muffins are incredibly low.

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Hecate strokes the side of Pippa’s face gently, trying to broach her scepticism with as much kindness as she can. The last thing that she wants to do is hurt Pippa’s feelings. “I’m happy to stay and help.” 

She hopes her reservations aren’t too obvious, though it’s hard to keep the wariness from creeping into her tone.

“There’s nothing to worry about, Hiccup,” Pippa tuts, rolling her eyes. “How hard can it be?”

 _How hard, indeed._ Not wanting to dull Pippa’s enthusiasm, Hecate snags her lip between her teeth and nods. 

“Go on, my love,” Pippa urges, giving Hecate a light shove. “Everything is under control.”

 _Famous last words._ Hecate spares a glance at Morgana, curled in her basket, and they exchange matching expressions of pained resignation. Nevertheless, she does as she’s told.

Just under an hour later, Hecate reemerges, slipping a moon-shaped earring through the hole in her earlobe. She comes to an abrupt halt in the doorway when her eyes land on the scene in front of her.

Cherries are adhered to the stovetop in gelatinous clumps, soot is caked against the wall above the hob, and a smattering of sultanas and batter coat Pippa from head to toe. The blonde witch looks supremely guilty as she spies Hecate, her slight frame sagging in defeat.

It is simultaneously _not funny_ and the funniest thing that Hecate has ever witnessed. 

She nearly chokes on the laugh that pushes its way up into her mouth. “Am I to take it that there was, in fact, something to worry about?”

She’s doing a very bad job at keeping the amusement from her face as she treads closer. 

“I suppose you’re going to say I told you so,” Pippa grumbles miserably, and for once Hecate finds that she’s not pleased to have been right. She bites her tongue, running her fingernail over a charred glob of ginger and flicking it into the sink.

“I’m sorry, I forgot to add the nutmeg, so I took the tray out of the oven and—and put it on the counter,” Pippa croaks, rambling frantically, tiny droplets pearling against her eyelashes, “b-but the stove was on, and I knocked one of the cases over and—and…” Her shoulders shake erratically as she dissolves into tears. “Are you angry?”

Without allowing another second to pass, Hecate gathers Pippa into her arms, chuckling against her hair. “ _Of course_ not.” She leans back a fraction, wiping a chunk of mixture from Pippa’s chin with an adoring smile. “I _am,_ however, going to assume responsibility for all baking-related tasks from now on.”

Pippa lets out a watery laugh, nodding against Hecate’s clavicle. “There are a few that still made it, but they’re…” She sniffs, gesturing dejectedly at the cooling rack on the table.

Hecate takes her hand and pulls her towards the offending articles, curling an arm around her as Pippa’s head burrows into her shoulder. She scans the wreckage for signs of survivors. 

The muffins are woefully misshapen, displaying a range of the less desirable shades of the rainbow. It’s not a pretty sight, but fortunately Hecate is reasonably well-versed in how to react. Namely, in not reacting at all.

She picks up a plate, loading it with one of the mutant creations. With the precision of a surgeon, she cuts it in half, bringing a portion up to her mouth and taking a bite. She does her utmost not to wince.

Pippa, in her smeared apron and one comically large oven glove that she still hasn’t removed, pokes at the wilted edge of a particularly terrible-looking delicacy.

“I just don’t understand it,” she moans, hitting a fist against the wood. “That _insufferable_ oven!”

“Yes, I’m sure it was the oven that I recall having _one too many_ glasses of Bordeaux last night,” Hecate quips, unable to help herself. Admittedly, it may not be her most sensible decision.

“You can laugh all you like, Hecate Hardbroom,” Pippa threatens, scowling, though the accompanying gesture that comes from a glove-clad hand somewhat lessens the sting, “but don’t think that I’m above poisoning you.”

Hecate drops the remainder of the bitter muffin onto her plate, subtly removing a rogue button from her mouth. “I’m fairly certain that you have already.” Wisely, the retort is whispered at a low enough volume for Pippa to miss. 

Pippa huffs, disheartened, slumping down into the nearest chair. Hecate takes pity, moving behind her to rub her shoulders. “Perhaps you should retire from baking until we can get a new oven.”

This seems to appease Pippa and she tips her head back, grinning. All is forgiven between them.

“Please don’t tell Mother about the muffins. I’ll never hear the end of it.”

Hecate laughs, bending, brushing an upside-down kiss over Pippa’s lips. She intends for it to be brief but Pippa’s arms wind around the back of her neck, keeping her in place. 

They’re almost definitely going to be late at this rate. Hecate would like to say that this realisation dissuades her from delaying things further, but Pippa is so distracting that is altogether impossible. For once, her timekeeping abandons ship and her brain jumps with it. 

When they part, she just about manages to catch her breath for long enough to stare down at Pippa with a dreamy smile, dipping forwards to kiss the tip of her nose. It’s so ridiculously sentimental that she cringes inwardly.

 _Okay,_ so maybe she’s gone a _bit_ soft. 

Eventually, a modicum of intelligent thought does return and Hecate concludes that they should probably eat something before their journey. She presses one last kiss to Pippa’s cheek before extricating herself from her grasp, making a beeline for the toaster. 

The knife she’s holding in her hand hovers over the loaf of bread after cutting a single slice. She glances at Pippa from beneath her lashes, observing her as she mouths along to the asinine lyrics of ‘Jingle Bell Rock’. It really should irk Hecate, but she’s surprised to find that it doesn’t. A wave of pure affection unfurls inside her chest, making her heart beat double time.

A little magic _surely_ won’t hurt. 

Hecate flexes her fingers, pretending not to notice the way that Pippa’s eyes suddenly light up like Catherine wheels, her mouth beaming so widely that it makes Hecate’s head spin. A sticky pink doughnut, laden with a copious amount of sprinkles and enough icing to energise an entire army, sits on a plate in front of her.

“Just this once,” Hecate warns, seating herself opposite Pippa and finally meeting her gleeful gaze. _She’s as transparent as a dragonfly’s wing._ She butters her toast, unable to stop her lips from curling up at the corners.

“Have I told you today how much I love you?” Pippa asks, reaching for Hecate's hand across the table and skimming her toes over Hecate’s anklebone. 

A warm blush spreads over Hecate's cheeks. “It was implied.”

“Well, I shall tell you anyway,” Pippa smiles, bringing Hecate’s fingers towards her and kissing the knuckles on each one. “I love you, Hiccup.”

If the sky had fallen down at that exact moment, Hecate wouldn’t have noticed. Total happiness blitzes through her chest and she can do nothing else other than grin bashfully.

They finish their breakfast in comfortable silence, pausing every now and then to peer at each other like smitten _idiots. Goddess,_ she’s turned into a _gooey twit,_ and, tragically, Pippa seems to have met much the same fate.

Afterwards, Hecate clears the table, stacking their plates on the counter. She wields a mop and then returns to press a sweet kiss against Pippa’s forehead. “Go and change. I’ll clean up in here and prepare something edible to take with us.”

Pippa tilts her head to the side, pursing her lips and knitting her brows in mock consideration. She clambers to her feet, wrapping one hand around Hecate’s neck and taking the mop from Hecate’s fist with the other. 

“Hmm, I have a better idea.”

With an exaggerated flinging motion, she lets go of the mop and the handle hits the floor with a loud thump. Her fingers curl around the collar of Hecate’s dress, walking them backwards towards the bedroom. 

“We both sort this mess out later,” Pippa suggests with a dangerous husk, latching her mouth onto Hecate’s throat and grazing her teeth over her pulse point, “and you help clean _me_ up instead.”

“ _Pippa,_ ” Hecate protests weakly, though she’s a bit too addled to give it much emphasis, “we’re already late.”

Pippa laughs, a rich, throaty sound that coats every cell of Hecate’s body like melted chocolate. “ _Precisely,_ so what difference will another half an hour make, really?”

There’s a dim corner of Hecate’s mind that questions the logical soundness of that argument, but it’s drowned out rather quickly by the urgent hands that are descending over her waist and hiking up the bottom of her skirt as she’s pinned against the mattress.

 _Stuff it,_ Hecate will just have to use her magic to make something when she gets there.

And yes, _fine,_ she’s as soft as a soufflé.

When they do eventually arrive, over an hour and a half behind schedule, Humphrey’s welcoming grin is _far_ too cocky for Hecate’s liking.


	24. the fascinating snake under the leaves

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is literally the dumbest one that I've written so far and, as always, it spiralled out of control.

Hecate, to Pippa's eternal amazement, manages to rustle up a mouthwateringly delicious baked Alaska for lunch without so much as a tiny inferno. If Pippa wasn’t already head over heels for her, the ease with which she conquers even the trickiest of puddings would probably be enough to seal the deal. 

It is so scrumptious, in fact, that Pippa currently has her finger dipped into the dessert dish that she’s supposed to be clearing away. She brings the sweet, sticky delight up to her mouth with a happy hum, closing her eyes. In her not-so-humble opinion, Hecate is hands down the best baker of all time, though that’s something that she will absolutely not share with her mother.

Through the kitchen window, Pippa spies her favourite witch brushing away snow from the bird table in the front garden. Her lips blossom into a dopey smile as she watches Hecate placing scraps of bread and seeds out for hungry bellies to find later. It pulls at her heart, reminding her of two young witches raising a brood of small mice in their turret. Pippa can’t imagine a day when Hecate’s insurmountable kindness will cease to bring tears to her eyes.

Her winsome musings morph into something else, however, when she sees a familiar figure with jet black hair and hauntingly blue eyes sidling up to the garden gate. A hot, ugly feeling sneaks up her spine, lodging firmly at the base of her chest. The flurry of snow that continues to float down outside muffles any sound that she might otherwise have heard through the thin pane, but she can just about make out the words as they form on the woman’s lips.

“You must be new around here. I’d definitely have remembered someone as striking as you.” 

Pippa’s stomach floods with something akin to magma and she feels like someone is pushing pins into her skin. She bites the inside of her cheek as the woman reaches for Hecate’s arm, tipping her head back and laughing as Hecate flinches at the contact. 

She can’t discern Hecate’s reply because by now she has her back to the glass, but her slender form is notably taut. The other woman laughs again at whatever Hecate has said, placing a manicured hand on her shoulder and pointing to something in the flower bed.

_Right, that does it._

Pippa snatches up her coat, marching outside with the fury of Helen going into battle. She catches the tail end of Hecate’s answer to whatever repugnant question she’s been asked. 

“…I will have to decline your invitation.”

Without missing a beat, Pippa wraps her arm around Hecate’s waist. Her touch is firm but she’s trembling slightly, steeling her jaw. 

“Are you ready for our walk, my darling?” The voice that leaves Pippa’s mouth sounds mechanical, pointed in a way that is unusually loaded for the mellow witch. She leans up to press a hard kiss against Hecate’s cheek.

Hecate raises her eyebrows but sinks into Pippa’s embrace, curling a willowy limb around her back. Her pulse quickens, plagued by the unshakeable sense that she has done something wrong, or led Pippa to believe that she has grounds to be concerned. _Yes,_ she’s a bit socially inept, but surely nothing she’d said was egregious enough to warrant intervention, _was it?_

Before Hecate can even respond, Pippa turns to face the other woman, glaring. “Good afternoon, Marlene,” she bristles, her tone dripping with sugar and venom. Hecate can feel the tension leeching out of Pippa’s body. She squeezes closer, trying to offer some reassurance.

“Lovely to see you, too, Pippa,” Marlene scoffs, twining a loose strand of hair around her finger before regarding Hecate with a sultry grin. Her ruby lips draw back to show pearly white teeth. “Your timing is rather unfortunate. Hecate and I were just getting acquainted.”

Hecate squints between the two women, trying to work out what _on earth_ is going on. “Marlene was asking me about the best location for planting tulips,” she explains, running her fingertips over the pebbles of Pippa’s spine. They are locked together tightly, pinning her back into a rigid line. 

“Is that so? I had no idea you were such a keen gardener.” Pippa’s eyes are dangerously narrow, flickering with contempt. “I think you’ll find that poison ivy is much more up your street if you want to pursue a hobby.”

Pippa shuffles as if she’s going to step forwards but seemingly decides against it. The muscles in her jaw flutter. “Better yet, why not go and add some more candy canes to that gingerbread house of yours in the woods? It must be due a renovation.”

Marlene folds her arms, releasing a snide chuckle. “Pippa, Pippa, no need to be so snippy. I was simply taking an interest.” Her cheekbones are heavily chiselled in a way that seems almost familiar to Hecate, though she’s not sure why. 

“Well, it seems to me that you’ve taken rather an _interest_ in my girlfriend,” Pippa states icily, though Hecate can feel her shaking. “Divine as she may be, I think your time would be more wisely spent elsewhere.”

 _Wait,_ is Pippa _jealous?_ Hecate’s mouth opens, bafflement and amusement singing through her skull in equal measure. She suppresses a nervous laugh, though it pushes through anyway as a spluttering cough. 

“Gauche as ever, I see,” Marlene snaps, before turning her attention back to Hecate and winking. “Regardless, I rather think that’s up to Hecate to decide.”

 _Ah._ Things are about to head south very quickly.

Pippa’s nostrils flare and the skin on the back of her knuckles turns as white as the ground beneath them. Hecate surmises that it might be best to step in. If her stance is anything to go by, Pippa is about ten seconds away from inflicting grievous bodily harm on the woman in front of her. Call Hecate old-fashioned but she’d prefer not to have Pippa arrested during the holidays. 

“It was nice to meet you but, as I said before, my calendar is full,” Hecate answers with a polite nod, relieved to feel Pippa relaxing just a fraction against her side. 

“Don’t let us keep you,” Pippa asserts, her words brittle and stony, “I’m sure you have another relationship to be ruining.” A lump of snow falls from a tree branch somewhere above them and lands on Hecate’s boot. Hopefully it’s merely a coincidence, either that or Pippa needs to work on her aim.

Marlene cackles, brushing an imaginary piece of lint from her shoulder. “Touché. Always a pleasure to spar with you, Pip.” She fixes her sights on Hecate, pulling her collar higher around her neck. “You’ve snagged a good one, Hecate. Don’t hurt her. Smoking as you are, and as much as I’d like to buy a ticket on that ride, I can still incinerate you. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

Hecate frowns, licking her lips. She credits herself with being reasonably intelligent but she’s having trouble following the tilt-a-whirl of information that she’s desperately trying to unpick. Pippa still appears like she’s about to challenge Marlene to a duel for Hecate’s hand, her eyes spearing through the woman’s maroon cloak, and Marlene’s expression is both smarmy and threatening in a way that is impossible to translate.

“I…understand the individual words,” Hecate mumbles, her gaze flitting between the two women. Marlene snorts, arching her neck, and Pippa looks like she’s about to seize the opportunity and go for her throat. 

Hecate takes Pippa’s hand, holding it tightly and encircling her protectively with her other arm. Mostly to soothe her, but partially to ensure that her fingers don’t do anything rash. There’s no glossing over the fact that Pippa’s impulse control leaves a lot to be desired.

“You’re charming,” Marlene drawls, shaking her head. She levels her eyes at Pippa, pinching the tip of her chin between her fingers. “Ta-ta for now, dearest. Send my love to Dee and Humph.”

It doesn’t occur to Hecate that Marlene, too, is a witch, until the space that she was occupying is suddenly filled with nothing but air and crackling static. She pauses a moment to take stock of what has just transpired before adjusting Pippa in her arms, stroking the side of her face tentatively.

“That woman,” Pippa seethes, her chest puffing out and brows drawing together, “is without a doubt the most _loathsome_ toad I’ve ever had the misfortune of knowing.”

Hecate waits for Pippa’s breathing to settle into a more even pattern, running her fingers across the nape of her neck. “Who—who was that?” She’s not sure that it’s the best question to be submitting given the circumstances but she’s still fairly puzzled by the whole affair.

A mottled, pink flush spreads up across the exposed skin of Pippa’s throat. “ _She_ is a narcissistic, _intolerable_ vamp who preys on anything with a pulse,” Pippa mutters, her features alight with disdain. She huffs, sliding her hands up to rest against Hecate’s sternum. “She also just so happens to be my idiotic cousin.”

Hecate’s eyes widen in recognition, finally slotting the pieces together. _“Lenny?”_

“Yes, _Lenny._ ” Tears start to mill against Pippa’s eyelashes, though she stubbornly refuses to let them fall. “Apparently she gets a perverse kick out of torturing me.”

She stares down at her feet, avoiding Hecate’s gaze. The idea that Pippa could even for a moment think that there was any risk of her affections being swayed pinches against Hecate’s ribs. It’s so inconceivable and absurd that she struggles to articulate a response.

“Pippa, I would _never—_ ” Pippa’s fingers cover her mouth. She seems rather embarrassed by her display, shifting between her feet and peering up at Hecate with a watery expression.

“I know, Hiccup. I’m sorry,” Pippa says quietly, reaching up to fiddle with Hecate’s earring. “It’s just—I don’t like her, and I especially don’t like the way that she was fawning over you. She has a vile habit of trying to take anything that is…”

Pippa’s voice peters out and she sighs, blinking rapidly. She offers Hecate an apologetic little smile, shrugging her shoulders. 

Some kind of blind relief races through Hecate’s body, sending any lingering worries off into the ether. She glances down at Pippa fondly, tapping the end of her nose. “You are utterly ridiculous, Pipsqueak,” she laughs, cradling Pippa’s face between her palms, “and I love you more than the whole of the night sky.”

There’s a few moments of silence as Pippa stares up through wet lashes, grinning at Hecate as if she’s just handed her the most precious relic in the world. She exhales raggedly, hooking her fingers around Hecate’s neck and tiptoeing up to smudge a litany of kisses against her lips. Their noses are cold as they bump together, chilled from the snow that continues to meander down, but neither of them seem to mind.

It takes a little while to adapt their eyes to the bright, white scene around them when they break apart. Hecate feels like her brain has been sucked into a snowdrift, buried beneath a layer of candy-floss sweetness. She opens her coat, shimmying Pippa in her arms until it’s securely tucked around both of them. 

“And I _am,_ ” she states, pressing her lips against Pippa’s forehead, “so there’s no need to fret, okay?”

Pippa, who is smiling up at Hecate so widely that her teeth have started to chatter, appears unable to remember the threads of their conversation. “You are what?”

Hecate smooths the tip of her tongue along her lip before biting down. Her eyes crinkle in the corners as her mouth twitches. _“Yours.”_

It seems like a redundant thing to say and Hecate blushes, regarding Pippa with an awkward, lopsided smile. Pippa positively beams, hugging Hecate fiercely around the middle and tucking her face against the wool of her coat with a delighted sob. “ _My_ Hiccup.”

A loud bang sounds behind them as Elodie throws the door open, bustling out with handfuls of knitted material. Humphrey follows in her footsteps, almost literally, treading through the tracks that she’s left behind in the snow. 

“The distinct smell of burning sulphur, _‘Surrender Dorothy’_ floating around in skywriting, the dulcet tones of a harpy still ringing on the breeze—by any chance did my niece stop by?” Humphrey smirks, grinning more enthusiastically as Elodie glowers at him. 

The chaotic energy that bounces from every surface in the general vicinity ever since the pair stepped outside causes Pippa to giggle uncontrollably. Hecate isn’t faring much better.

Elodie rushes forwards, draping a scarf around each of their necks. “It is _bitter_ out here, my loves. I won’t let you budge another inch without proper insulation.” 

Humphrey rolls his eyes at the two younger witches. Without a word, he catches Elodie around the waist, hoisting her up and dangling her over a snow-covered shrub. She kicks her legs out in front of her, screeching, scrabbling her hands over Humphrey’s forearms. 

“If you don’t put me down this _second,_ Humphrey—”

 _Oh no._

A piercing shriek cuts through the quiet as Humphrey, with a petulant retort of, _“If you insist,”_ drops Elodie, unceremoniously, directly into the bush. 

After a small amount of thrashing, Elodie successfully heaves herself upright. She rears up, ignoring the fact that she is smothered in twigs, and shoves Humphrey in the chest. 

“Count your days, Humphrey Pentangle,” she grumbles, punctuating each word with a poke, “count your days.”

Humphrey takes pity, straightening her hat and brushing the snow from her cheeks. “Just following orders, ma’am,” he chuckles, before leaning down to kiss her.

Pippa makes an exaggerated groaning sound, hiding her face against Hecate’s neck. “Please tell me that I’m not as bad as them.” She lifts her head, popping out her bottom lip.

“No, my darling,” Hecate smiles, kissing her gloved hand and pressing it against Pippa’s cheek. “You are _much_ worse.”

Pippa laughs, full of light, and, despite the freezing snowflakes that settle against her skin, Hecate finds that she is blissfully warm.


	25. mysteries too marvelous to be understood

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry that this chapter took a little longer, I've had a few things going on. I also found this quite a tricky one to write so I hope that you like it regardless.
> 
> Once again, I've had to split this so apparently it's the longest Yule in the history of Yules. ;)
> 
> I'm also writing a Narcissa/Lily fic if anyone is interested. Chapters 5/6 are up. Check it out here:  
> [ **how the flowers rise and open**](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28534197)

Hecate is reasonably certain, as they begin to walk down the lane that curves around the edge of the house, that she’s somehow wearing more layers than she set out with. She’s not sure which one of the Pentangles is to blame, though she suspects that the most likely culprit is currently up ahead, keeping pace with her father. Regardless, she’s grateful. Snow continues to cloud the air with moon-white specks that descend against her cheeks with a persistence that stings. 

They’ve fallen into a steady rhythm by the time they reach the meadow overlooking the cliffs. Humphrey and Pippa lead the expedition, several strides in front, weaving a map of bootprints across the blanketed ground. Arm in arm, Elodie and Hecate amble along behind them. 

The reduced visibility leaves Hecate feeling slightly disoriented, slightly on edge. Still, Elodie is warm beside her. She smells like gingerbread and maple syrup, and lifts Hecate’s spirits by chirping happily about botanicals. 

Frosty flakes stick to Hecate’s hair and coat as they trundle over the landscape but a sense of peace sinks through her veins. She watches as Humphrey slings an arm around Pippa’s shoulders, laughing. It’s so easy to get swept up and into the overwhelming bubble of bliss that comes from being with the Pentangles. 

Even years later, decades after her first introduction to this mysterious little world, Hecate still can’t quite work out how it has opened to embrace her so fully. She’s not convinced that she has much to offer, but she tries her hardest to be someone worthy of a such a blessing. Someone who, this time, won’t squander it away. 

She stares at the two figures strolling ahead of them, tracing the arch of Pippa’s back. Intermittently, she sees Humphrey stooping to pick something up, sliding whatever he’s collecting into his pocket.

Her heart clenches with guilt, but she tries to quash those thoughts. The stillness surrounding them is exquisite, almost spectral in its prettiness, and Hecate doesn’t want to spend another moment wasting its quiet splendour. 

Pippa, too, is so gorgeous that it threatens to unravel her. Every ten steps or so, she turns her head to glance back at Hecate, beaming, as if to make sure that she’s still there. A few times, she even accompanies the action with a little wave, which is completely _illogical_. It’s also entirely adorable and, _goddess help her,_ Hecate feeblemindedly waves back each time with her own stupid grin.

“She’s beautiful, isn’t she?”

Hecate blushes furiously at Elodie’s question, though she hopes that her cheeks are already rosy enough to disguise her embarrassment at being caught. Even so, she smiles, meeting Elodie’s kind eyes with a nod. “She is.”

Out of nowhere, and everywhere, something bangs against Hecate’s ribcage, demanding to be acknowledged. It leaves virtually no room in her chest, compressing her lungs with every breath that she tries to pull into her body. The hair on the back of her neck stands on end. 

Her feet continue to trudge forwards but they’re moving independently, and she’s not positive that she’s walking in a straight line. 

“Elodie, the night that I—the night that I _left,_ ” Hecate wheezes out, pinching her eyes tight, “I—I never meant to—”

“The first time I saw her,” Elodie says wistfully, cutting over Hecate’s jumbled words, “pink and wrinkled and tiny, with this little hand that grabbed onto me and refused to let go, I felt so much love for her that it flipped my whole world on its head.”

She curls her free hand around Hecate’s bicep. “Pippa’s always been like that, angelic and kind, and stubborn as a stone. I knew, right then and there, that I’d give up my life, _everything,_ to keep her safe.”

Fire blazes up and licks at the walls of Hecate’s stomach. She sucks in her top lip, nibbling at the chunk of flesh. Her heart is beating so frantically that she can feel her pulse throbbing at her wrists.

“I’m sorry,” Hecate chokes, nearly suffocated by the blackness the swirls around in her blood, “I won’t hurt her again, not like—not the way that I…” She emits a strained, whimpering sound that she wishes that she could have smothered away.

“Hecate, do you know what Humphrey told her when she called us and said that she was going to be seeing you again after so many years?” 

Elodie’s voice is smooth and calm, gentle in a way that Hecate does not understand. She feels completely blindsided, even though it was her own idiotic heart that opened the door to this conversation.

A mounting panic climbs the rungs of Hecate’s ribs. She feels like she’s inhaling chalk dust. Though censure is long overdue, she isn’t sure if she has the strength to bear whatever is coming next. _What a mess._

When Hecate fails to reply, Elodie’s palm travels over the length of her sleeve and she feels a soft hand pressing into her own. _“Don’t be so proud and hardheaded that you let a chance at happiness slip through your fingers.”_

A muddle of thoughts clang around in Hecate’s skull. She doesn’t quite grasp what Elodie means by that, what Humphrey meant by that, and she hates the fuzzy mist of emotion that swarms her vision. 

She’s stopped walking entirely by this stage, shame shackling her ankles in place. She opens her mouth to respond but it is too dry to even form the shapes of the words.

“And would you like to know what I said?” Elodie shifts, pivoting her body to stand in front of Hecate. 

The answer to that query is _‘no’_ , in truth, but Hecate ducks her head, nodding. She takes off her gloves, needing to feel the firm press of her skin as she steeples her fingers together. It’s not a brilliant decision given the temperature, but she has limited resources at her disposal. Running away is almost sure to be futile. 

Elodie tilts Hecate’s chin up with a hooked finger, offering her a wispy smile. _“Go and get your girl.”_

Hecate blinks rapidly, trying to stave off the tears that are hammering at her eyelids.

_What?_

Her eardrums are pounding and she’s not sure if she’s heard Elodie correctly, because the statement seems completely inconceivable. She struggles to unravel the ropes that are winding their way around her throat, pulling taut. She feels immeasurably dazed.

She balls her hand into a fist, digging in her fingernails. It hurts, _quite badly, actually,_ but it’s better than committing another disappearing act.

“I know why you left, sweetheart. You don’t owe me an explanation or an apology.”

Something sharp and corrosive cuts against Hecate’s tongue. “But I _do,_ because I—”

“—did what I would have done,” Elodie interjects, framing Hecate’s face with her hands in an attempt to lift her eyes. “You gave up everything, your _life,_ because you thought you were protecting Pippa.” She grins, the type of soothing, benevolent grin that Pippa inherited. The type of grin that makes Hecate disintegrate into tears. “There’s no doubt in my mind about how much you love my daughter, Hecate.”

A small, reedy sob spills from Hecate’s lips. The ground underfoot feels like it’s sinking beneath her. Elodie peels open her fingers, healing the bloody crescents that have formed like hills across the top of her palm.

“You don’t need to earn love, sweetheart, not the kind that’s real. It’s just there, waiting patiently to be found and nurtured.” She reaches up to tap the end of Hecate’s nose, still smiling that same pure, giving smile. “Pippa loves you very, _very_ much, as do I.”

Hecate snatches in a gulp of freezing air, welcoming the burn as it hits her lungs. For a moment, she simply gapes at Elodie, willing her whirring brain to stop screaming long enough to pluck out a sentence. Even a word would be great at this point, but she’s coming up short. _What can she say that isn’t painfully insufficient?_

“I—I _love_ Pippa,” Hecate murmurs faintly, licking at her chapped lips. She glimpses at Elodie before her eyes clamp shut, the skin around them bunching into a series of wiry lines. Twin ridges appear between her brows as she thumbs for letters to string together in her head. “I love her more than anything. And I—I want you to know that I—” She feels dizzy. Her breaths are shallow, coming out in thin ribbons. “That I care about you deeply. You and Humphrey.”

Elodie gives a brief warning, a shaky, garbled laugh, before throwing her arms around Hecate and embracing her so forcefully that they are at risk of tumbling over. Hecate can feel wetness against her jaw, can feel the tears sneaking out of her own eyes, and she thanks the stars, the galaxy, the universe for the technicolour miracle that is the Pentangles.

“I’m the luckiest mother in the world,” Elodie whispers, leaning up to seal a kiss against Hecate’s forehead, “because somehow I ended up with both of you.”

Hecate releases a watery, croaking sound that dashes out unchecked, her lips creeping into a timid smile. 

They might be there for moments, or hours, when Pippa’s silky voice calls from somewhere in the distance. “Are you two slowpokes alright?” Hecate can just about make out her silhouette several metres in front of them. She’s turned around to face them, her hand raised above her eyes to form a shelf against the snow.

Elodie draws back, swiping her fingertips along her lash line and grinning at Hecate before swivelling to address her daughter. “Yes, honey, we’re fine. Wonderful, in fact.”

“If you say so. Hiccup, my darling, come here,” Pippa shouts, beckoning with her fingers, “I want to show you something.” With a gentle pat, Elodie motions for her to go on ahead. 

Hecate’s legs feel unsteady as she moves to meet Pippa. The jarring contrast between Pippa’s fuchsia attire and the white backdrop does not help her whirling vision. When she eventually makes it, Pippa’s hands slide around her shoulders.

“Did Mother say something to upset you?” Her nose is rosy from the cold and snowflakes are stuck to her eyelashes. “I did tell her that drinking three glasses of spiced rum with lunch was a bad idea.”

Hecate smiles at her fondly, grazing the pads of her fingers over the side of her cheek. “No, not at all. Quite the opposite.”

The relieved sigh that rushes out of Pippa’s mouth warms the space between them. “Good. I’d hate to have to drop a house on her. It would rather hobble festivities.” 

“Yes, I imagine that it would,” Hecate states drily, arching an eyebrow. They are positioned beneath a gaunt-looking apple tree that is barely clinging to the earth. Its roots protrude from the ground, appearing like wizened limbs crawling out from below.

It is not exactly a pretty sight, but Hecate is too absorbed by Pippa’s hypnotic little grin to notice. “You had something to show me?”

Her eyes map over the hair curling around Pippa’s ears, the slope of her nose, the bow of her lips. She’s so lovely that Hecate can hardly believe that she’s real. 

“Look up,” Pippa instructs happily, pointing above them. Hecate is reluctant to avert her gaze but she allows it to drift up the length of Pippa's finger, following her gesture. 

_Ah._ There, wound tightly around the highest branches, is a clustered web of mistletoe, so wild and overgrown that it seems to be strangling its host. The separate sprigs are woven into one twisted mass. Hecate’s heart feels very similar. Heat springs to her face as she drops her eyes, meeting Pippa’s lustrous smile. 

She gets the distinct impression that she’s been _bamboozled._ Pippa looks far too pleased with herself. 

Well, _two can play at that game._

“ _Viscum album,_ a parasitic plant,” Hecate notes in a flippant tone, wrinkling her nose in distaste. “Ingestion can lead to blurred vision, nausea and seizures.”

It is very hard not to cave when Pippa’s smug expression wanes into sulkiness. She scratches her nails against the nape of Hecate’s neck. “How romantic, Hiccup.”

Hecate can’t resist teasing her further. In her periphery, she sees Elodie running to catch up with Humphrey, who opens his arms to greet her. 

“Strictly speaking, I’m not sure that a tangled clump is quite in keeping with tradition,” Hecate replies gravely, doing her best to muffle her amusement. 

Pippa stamps her foot in the most petulant, irritated manner possible. “ _Nonsense._ We’re underneath it, aren’t we?” Her bottom lip wobbles.

Every nerve ending in Hecate’s body begs her to relent, but she’s enjoying Pippa’s pout far too much. She watches Humphrey piggybacking Elodie around in the background, listening to his chuckles as Elodie squeals at his erratic changes of direction. 

_They are idiots, and evidently it’s contagious._

It’s increasingly difficult to keep a straight face but she has one more bluff left in her. “I suppose, technically, _although_ —”

Pippa looks _absolutely bloody furious._ “Are you _seriously_ going to stand here and argue with me when—”

In one swift motion, Hecate releases the ecstatic laugh that she’s been holding, pressing Pippa back against the bark and kissing the scowl right from her face. She continues to laugh against Pippa’s mouth, sliding her hands up to twine into her hair. Her legs feel like they are made of nothing more than sea foam. Pippa's surprised yelp glides into a satisfied hum as she digs her fingers into Hecate’s shoulder blades, holding her steady. 

“ _Not_ funny, Hiccup,” she mumbles against Hecate’s lips, although she grabs her collar and yanks her forwards for another scorching kiss. “I was beginning to think that you’d gone off me.”

“Then you must be the biggest fool in the history of fools, Pippa Pentangle,” Hecate smiles. By now, Elodie and Humphrey are chasing each other with fistfuls of snow, ducking and diving to avoid every feeble projectile that sails their way. Neither Hecate nor Pippa seem to register their antics. 

“You're not too put off by the pink or the peroxide, then?” Pippa’s tone is teasing but a flicker of vulnerability skims around the edges of her voice. “You don’t think me too glitzy for my age?” She tilts her head to the side, poking out her tongue.

Pippa’s words trip through Hecate, smacking at her insides as she rummages for a reply. The question that she answers is not quite the one that she’s been asked, not one that materialised into being, but it’s a question that Hecate sees glimmering in the sheen of Pippa’s eyes.

“I think that you are the most beautiful thing that I've ever seen, Pipsqueak,” Hecate breathes out reverently, running her fingertip over the shell of Pippa’s ear, “and how I feel about you it’s—well, I—I’m certain that it’s _never_ going to change.”

There’s not even time to brace before Hecate feels her body being spun around as Pippa all but slams her against the tree. She feels a cold nose nuzzling against her neck and then Pippa’s lips are slanting back over hers, searing and desperate, her hands descending the ladder of Hecate’s ribs and fastening around her waist. 

Murkily, and with a great deal of interference, the thought does come to Hecate that the way that Pippa is currently kissing her is not wise with a prospective audience in the wings, but she’s beyond the point of coherence.

There’s not even a hint of lipstick left on Pippa’s mouth when they break apart. Hecate runs a finger around the oval of her own lips, concerned that it may have migrated. From the smirky expression that sits on Pippa’s face, she's fairly confident that it has. Pippa brings up her thumb, wiping it over Hecate’s chin. 

_Oh Merlin,_ she is a swooning dimwit.

Her head nearly thumps against the wood when Humphrey and Elodie appear beside them mere seconds later.

“Bravo, Pippa, brilliant handiwork,” Humphrey chuckles, squeezing his daughter’s shoulders. “Wish I’d thought of that myself.”

Hecate turns scarlet, but Pippa just tuts, rolling her eyes so emphatically that only the whites are visible. “Well thank you for sparing us the trauma.” 

“Ignore your father, sweetheart. He’s just happy, that’s all.” Elodie tucks Pippa’s scarf underneath the lapel of her coat, patting the fabric. “We’re going to go on ahead. We’ll see you back at home.”

“Yes, we’ll leave you two to, er… _canoodle._ ” Pippa opens her mouth as if she’s going to hex Humphrey on the spot, but Elodie positions herself between them, taking Humphrey’s arm.

“Right, my love, time to go,” Elodie sighs, shaking her head. 

“Alright, just a minute.” He tips his head to the left, signalling for Hecate to join him several feet away from the others. Hecate flits her eyes to Pippa but she simply shrugs, claiming innocence, and smiles at her apologetically.

Despite her confusion, Hecate follows his lead.

She waits as he delves a hand into his jacket, grabbing out a red silk handkerchief. He peels back the material to reveal seven small pebbles, before wrapping them back up and placing them into her palm.

“Here, take these with you.”

She stares down at the bundle between her fingers, confusion snaking over her features. “ _What are_ —”

He taps a finger against the side of his nose. “Trust me, you’ll see. Just keep your wits about you. Sometimes, when things involve the Pentangle women, it’s better to smile, nod, and find out the rest later.” 

Frowning, she takes one last peek at the object and slips it into her pocket. “I suppose… _thank you?_ ”

Humphrey laughs and it echoes from the branches of the thicket. “You’re most welcome.”

As she watches his back move further away as he heads to join his wife, Hecate mutters to herself under her breath. 

_“Why do I get the feeling that I’m not going to like this?”_


	26. the blank, white, glittering sublime

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is a miracle because when I finished it I looked outside to find that it had snowed here and settled for the first time this winter. :')
> 
> This one is dedicated to Emma, arguably my favourite snow-pal. One day, I promise we'll have another snow day together.
> 
> Just...dumb fluff. That's all it is. I'm not even sorry.

Trundling along, with Pippa tucked against her side, Hecate, for once, forgets to worry about anything. Their fingers are laced together, interlocked like the petals of a budding flower. Pippa is so small in just her flat boots, so dainty, and it does things to Hecate’s heart that defy all rational explanation.

They comment on each variety of plant that they stumble across, sometimes pausing to take a few cuttings for the greenhouse. Hecate’s beloved greenhouse, which, unfortunately, was recently under siege. 

“It was completely out of control,” Hecate gripes, flicking a holly leaf on the bush in front of her. “Almost every one of my potted daffodils was smashed beyond redemption. I can’t even _fathom_ what possessed them to…” She pinches her eyes shut, shaking her head. Pippa offers a sympathetic smile, cupping her cheek.

“What did Maud and Mildred have to say on the matter?”

Hecate groans, covering Pippa’s hand with her own. “They _claimed_ that they wished to bring me some _‘Christmas cheer’_.” Her brow furrows and deep etches form across her forehead. “I mean, _really,_ can you imagine? A five year old knows the difference between elves and gnomes, Pippa.”

Pippa’s bottom lip vanishes as she curls it back into her mouth, trying to obscure a smile. “Oh, Hiccup, you weren’t too cross with them, were you?”

Hecate does not reply but she grumbles, dropping her hand and rolling a red berry between her fingers. She pulls it from its stem, holding it up for inspection. 

“They confused patchouli and lavender, Pipsqueak. _Lavender,_ ” she complains, weariness and disbelief buzzing behind every syllable. She discards the tiny, crimson ball with a huff. “The scent alone should have been enough to alert them to their error, but apparently their olfactory senses, not to mention studies, are severely lacking.” 

Pippa shuffles, winding her arms up around Hecate’s shoulders. From this close, Hecate can see the tiny freckles that dapple the bridge of Pippa’s nose like asterisms. A dusky, rouge hue glows across her cheekbones. For a brief moment, Hecate feels like she’s seventeen again, so dazzled and stricken by love that she can trace its palms caressing her kneecaps. 

“It’s wonderful that they wanted to do something nice, darling,” Pippa grins, stretching up to bury a kiss against Hecate’s jaw. “I love that they tried to do something special for my Hiccup. They _like_ you.”

“Yes, I…” Hecate’s face softens and her eyes shine. She clears her throat. “I simply told them that, in future, should they wish to get into my good graces, orchids are less unpredictable than magical entities and far easier to procure.”

Pippa peers up at her with a tender expression, pulling her tighter. “So that’s where the orchid in your study came from?”

A perplexed little laugh canters past Hecate’s lips. “Yes, _Mildred,_ she…” Hecate’s eyelashes flutter and her mouth twitches.

“Adores you,” Pippa finishes, bumping her nose against Hecate’s as she slants her face down to kiss any objections away. It thaws something in Hecate’s chest, melting the icicles that dangle between the gaps of her ribs like slivers of glass. It’s an invitation to sunlight that saunters through like a blade lancing the clouds. 

“Well,” Hecate murmurs over Pippa’s lips, smiling in spite of herself, “I admit that perhaps she’s not _quite_ as hopeless as I originally thought.”

Pippa snorts, twiddling Hecate’s top button. “Your Grinch routine won’t work on me, Hiccup. You _love_ her.” There’s no room for Hecate to argue because Pippa distracts her with a wink, opening her scarf. She removes one of her gloves, running her bare fingertips over the expanse of Hecate’s throat. “I have to confess that I’m pleased it wasn’t from yet another admirer that I need to vanquish.”

Hecate shakes her head with a scoff, observing the lines that ripple around the edges of Pippa’s grin. Every breath loops out like incense circling their bodies. The fondness that is magnified in Hecate’s heart is almost crushing. She gathers Pippa closer, weaving her fingers into golden hair that glistens like spun sugar.

They remain moulded together for a long time, listening to the soft silence of the snow. It’s broken when Hecate mumbles something unintelligible over Pippa’s scalp and her neck is warmed by a small puff of laughter. She withdraws, flushing, but Pippa holds firm, rising on her toes to kiss her again. 

“We don’t seem to be getting very far,” Hecate remarks afterwards, though where it comes from she’s not sure. Her capacity to speak seems tenuous at best. 

“I wasn't aware that we were tied to a particular curfew,” Pippa giggles, but she slinks back, taking her place at Hecate's side once again. She squeezes her fingers. “Besides, we’re almost there.”

“Almost where?” Hecate’s eyebrow shoots up, arching quizzically. 

Pippa ignores the question, gripping Hecate’s hand more insistently. Her lips curl up at the corners, even as she endeavours to meld them into a line. Hecate glances at her, eyeing her with suspicion. 

“Why do you have that look?”

“What look?” Pippa offers her most cherubic little smile, peeking up at Hecate through impossibly long lashes.

“That, _‘I’m about to test the limits of Hecate’s patience’_ , look.” She attempts to use air quotes but they are slightly out of sync. 

“I don’t know what you mean,” Pippa chirps casually. She brings their joined fingers up to her mouth, pressing her lips against Hecate’s pale knuckles. It’s very unclear where her glove has disappeared to, but it’s the least of Hecate’s worries.

_“Pippa.”_

Clumps of snow sail into the space ahead of them as Pippa kicks her boot into the ground peevishly. “There’s no need to be so cynical, Hiccup,” she mutters, swinging their arms between them, “have I ever led you astray?”

 _Really,_ it should be blindingly obvious that it’s best not to respond to that. Hecate’s good sense, however, excused itself several decades ago. Her synapses are on the fritz. 

She exhales warily, stroking the back of Pippa’s hand. “Pipsqueak, it’s safe to say that your predilection for trouble knows no bounds.” 

Within moments, Pippa narrows her eyes, smiling in such a way that signals impending disaster. Her lips draw back, revealing a row of endearing little teeth that makes Hecate’s mind go fuzzy. 

_How can teeth be endearing?_ She is losing the plot.

Pippa halts, coming to a dead stop. “This will be the perfect spot.”

Hesitantly, and with great difficulty, Hecate persuades her clanging gears to operate. “The perfect spot for _what?_ ”

The sly, disarming smirk that spreads across Pippa’s face ignites a flamethrower in Hecate’s chest. She might as well start making funeral arrangements. Her head seems to be experiencing a power outage and her heart has blown a fuse. 

With deliberate slowness, Pippa slips her fingers into her pocket. A wonky grin adorns her features as she unfurls her fist between them, opening her palm to reveal an object to Hecate.

_Oh, hell._

Out of all of the _godforsaken_ things that could have appeared - a weapon, a wedge of tart, one of Mildred’s ghastly concoctions - this is quite possibly the _worst_ case scenario.

It’s a _carrot._

“ _No,_ Pipsqueak,” Hecate grizzles, folding her arms across her ribs. “Absolutely, _categorically,_ not.” She clamps her jaw tightly shut, her nostrils flaring.

Some of the light dwindles in Pippa’s eyes but she persists, resting a hand over Hecate’s breastbone. “Come on, Hecate, it will be fun.” 

She pops out her bottom lip, pleading in that wholly irritating and frustratingly _typical_ way that Hecate just cannot resist.

 _For the love of goddess._ Her resolve is dangling by a thread.

Hecate pokes her tongue against the inside of her cheek with an exaggerated grunt.

“Pippa, there is no way, under _any_ circumstances, that I am participating in such an asinine activity.” 

“Oh, _please,_ Hiccup?” Pippa beseeches in a delicate, trembling voice. She’s starting to sound slightly less confident, slightly unsure. “I want to make our own little snow witch. Our very own. Just _ours._ ” She has that predictable, droopy expression that is inevitably going to be Hecate’s undoing. 

_Damn it._

_How can Hecate deny Pippa anything?_

Why would she even _want_ to, when this is radiant, maddeningly beautiful Pippa, who fills her with such joy that there aren't enough atoms to contain it? 

Hecate doesn’t know whether or not she believes in fate. She certainly doesn’t believe in luck, which is astronomically stupid. She believes in magic, however, and she believes, more than anything, in _Pippa Pentangle._ Her insides gleam with a love so inextinguishable, so utterly sublime, that she can’t even blink without seeing stars.

The knowledge that Pippa chooses to be with her, _wants_ to be with her and to share her life with just her, every day, folds snugly against Hecate’s ribcage. It awakens something so divine in Hecate, so precious, that tears sting at her eyes.

She spends one last moment of silence waving goodbye to her dignity.

_Smile and nod._

She releases her best rendition of a long-suffering sigh, clicking her tongue. Her attempts to appear stern are not especially effective. “If I get frostbite, Pipsqueak, I am holding you personally responsible.”

 _“Really?”_ A delirious, wet laugh gushes out of Pippa’s lungs as she slings her arms around Hecate’s neck. She steals a swift kiss, gazing up at Hecate as if she’s viewing a garden full of flowers. Her eyes are bright and teeming with amazement.

Pippa has taken everything rotten in Hecate, every decaying husk, and nurtured each seed with the rich soil of her love until each crevice of her being is abundant with fragrant blossoms and hopeful stems. Sunflowers, absorbing every radioactive particle.

“Yes, _really,_ although may I suggest that we begin sooner rather than later, lest your wiles wear off and I change my mind.”

The statement is about as smoothly delivered as it is convincing, but Hecate can’t be blamed for that, _surely?_ It is certainly not _her_ fault that some otherworldly force blessed Pippa with that _bloody_ smile, reducing her to ruins.

 _“You,”_ Pippa whispers, with warm, soulful eyes, lifting her fingers and drawing them over the outline of Hecate’s mouth, “are _everything_ to me, Hiccup.” She bends down Hecate’s bottom lip with her thumb. “ _Everything._ Being with you, doing _anything_ at all, is the only thing that I’ll ever need.” 

Hecate’s breath snags against the back of her throat and her heart vaults up to meet it. She can’t hide the lone tear that obstinately rushes past her eyelid, following the line of her nose. It drips onto Pippa’s hand, salt meeting sweetness.

She doesn’t dare to cobble together a response. In lieu of one, she kisses Pippa's forehead, lulled under by the aching affection that swells within her bones. She feels like she’s floating weightlessly, suspended midair, and Pippa’s sturdy presence is her only centre of gravity.

Stepping back, she graces Pippa with one more doltishly sappy glance before gesturing towards the ground. 

“Shall we?”

Building snow witches, Hecate learns, is more a matter of chaos than skill. Any pretence of organised assembly falls by the wayside. Pippa’s vibrant enthusiasm rings between them like a melody as they work, which makes it increasingly challenging to remain grumpy. Like every other quirk and foible of Pippa’s, it annoys her a little too little. 

_Still,_ Hecate does have a reputation to uphold so she throws in a tut here and there, true to form. 

Irritatingly, Pippa doesn’t seem to be buying it for a minute. She zooms around, spilling laughter everywhere, touching her fingers against Hecate’s sleeves, her waist, her back, each time that they shift positions. Hecate feels every brush of contact absorbing its way into her bloodstream. 

_Gaia._

There are a thousand different reasons why Hecate should hate this whole activity, should bark at every senseless detail, but she doesn’t. _Not at all._ Not even when she’s faced with three totally _non-spherical_ spheres, haphazardly plonked together at an odd angle. Shockingly, Hecate finds that she _is_ having fun. _Who knew?_

The proportions of their poor creation have turned out, both figuratively and literally, pear-shaped. The head is a bit too small for the body, due to seizing fingers and Pippa’s resolute stance that they can’t use magic to help things along. Nevertheless, Pippa beams at the result and that’s all that matters, to Hecate at least. 

It’s impossible to think about anything else when Pippa’s coat is pink, and her nails are pink, and her cheeks are pink, and her lips are pink, and Hecate’s world is just _pink, pink, pink,_ spinning and spinning like cherry blossom caught in a twister.

Pippa asks something, though Hecate barely hears her. Her mind is still drifting high above them, attached by the thinnest kite string. “Hiccup?”

The word that has been knocking at her skull finally breaks through and Hecate jolts, her palm flying to her pocket. 

“ _Hiccup?_ Did the gnomes steal your eardrums?”

Pippa’s features are alight with amusement. In her befuddled state, Hecate doesn’t even have the wherewithal to glare. “I’m sorry, what did you say?”

“I asked whether or not you have the stones for it.”

Hecate wrinkles her nose at the vulgar phrasing. “The ‘stones’ for _what?_ ” Whatever it may be, if it involves any element of lucidity, the answer is _no._

Pippa giggles, brushing the pad of her thumb over Hecate’s chin. “For this, you idiot,” she teases, motioning towards the snow witch. “The stones Daddy gave you.”

 _“Oh,”_ Hecate mumbles, blushing. Only Pippa could make her feel this mawkish and enamoured all at once. She slips her hand into her coat, gingerly pulling out the wrapped bundle. “Here.”

Heat rises to her cheeks as Pippa fists into the fabric at her waist, hauling her forwards for a kiss. She nearly trips, which is not unusual but still rather humiliating. Her long limbs are always itching to betray her nerves. Pippa laughs against her, however, nipping at her lips, and that cancels out any bad thoughts that try to sprout. 

“Perfect,” Pippa hums, grinning and grinning. “You do the mouth, I’ll do the eyes.” She smiles wider, so Hecate does just that.

Despite her best efforts, the mouth ends up being decidedly crooked. Her fingers are numb, hampering any guise of dexterity. Pippa, of course, picks two pebbles for the eyes that are markedly different sizes, most probably to elicit Hecate’s disapproval. If that was her intention, it falls flat. Hecate is far too dazed to care. Like the cosmic mechanisms of the stars, following their own arcane rhythms and evading explanation, their little snow witch is just right. 

_It’s official,_ she’s gone off the deep end.

Hecate stares at their joint enterprise for a few moments, observing the twigs that poke out like two beckoning arms. For a split second, Hecate imagines that she can see its spirit swirling above, like a dryad escaping its tree. 

Pippa leans against her side, twining their fingers together. She seems contemplative, and strangely motionless.

“What do you think?” Hecate asks gently, studying the almost imperceptible way that the muscles in Pippa’s face contract. 

She watches as Pippa’s lower lip begins to quake and a forlorn, childlike expression takes hold. Hecate’s throat squeezes tightly. “Pipsqueak, what’s the matter?”

Pippa swivels, burying her head against Hecate’s neck. “It’s just, she—she seems sort of _sad,_ almost,” Pippa confesses woefully, her voice wavering in the middle. “I—I don’t like to think of her out here all alone in the—in the _cold._ ” She sniffs raggedly, clinging to Hecate’s coat.

Hecate cradles Pippa’s jaw in her hands, brushing her thumbs over her cheekbones. She’s on the brink of a migraine but she does her utmost not to sigh. “Darling, it’s— _she’s_ made out of _snow._ ”

“I know,” Pippa wails, tipping her chin up to reveal a puffy, red face, “but little Snowphie, she’s—she’s _special,_ and it’s _freezing_ and windy and she’s…she’s _ours._ ” Pippa squirms in Hecate’s arms, pressing her fingers over her eyes and making a wet, blubbering noise that rips at Hecate’s heart.

Hecate bites her lip, flitting her eyes between _‘Snowphie’_ , the most _noxiously_ named creature in existence, and Pippa. The scrunched, anguished state of Pippa’s features thunders through Hecate’s arteries.

_Heaven help her._

Without uttering a word, Hecate dusts a kiss against Pippa’s brow before stepping away from her. She treads towards the snow witch, pausing to glance back at Pippa over her shoulder. She’s met with a pair of shining eyes, and her decision is cemented. 

With a small, incredulous sigh, she takes off her scarf, winding it securely around _Snowphie’s_ neck. “There you are,” she whispers, tying the ends together.

 _Great,_ she’s now reduced to talking to a lump of frozen water. _Madness at its finest._

When she turns around, Pippa regards her quietly with very, _very_ damp eyes. Hecate balks under her gaze. Embarrassment overtakes her and she feels like that gangly teenager again, with legs that shudder like blancmange. Her bashful shrug is only halfway complete when Pippa hurtles into her, practically climbing up her body.

Pippa kisses her and kisses her and kisses her again. Icy fingers web through Hecate’s hair, pulling and stroking, twisting in a way that is sure to leave knots. “You love me,” Pippa laughs, though it sounds more like a sob, running her nose down the length of Hecate’s. 

_At least,_ Hecate thinks, _her sadness is gone._

“Of course I do,” Hecate says softly, taking Pippa’s hands between her own and trying to warm them. 

“You _love_ me.” Pippa laughs again, crying, her tone almost delirious with wonder, hooking her right foot behind Hecate’s left one. 

“ _Yes,_ but what—”

“I want to make a Pent _angel,_ ” Pippa states, before shoving their joined hands against Hecate’s chest and tipping them backwards. Hecate’s shoulders hit the ground in less than a second. Thankfully, on this occasion, magic partially dulls the blow. 

_“Pippa!”_ Hecate scolds, attempting to heave herself up onto her elbows. She’s pinned in place by the fury of pink on top of her and drops back with an exasperated huff. “There is snow creeping under my collar.”

Pippa’s wet eyelashes flutter against her cheek, temporarily suspending her protests. She stretches out their arms, dragging them up and down by their sides. 

“And now it’s going beneath my sleeves! Pippa, this is _entirely_ —”

 _“—brilliant,”_ Pippa sings, interrupting Hecate’s tirade. “One of my best ideas yet.”

Hecate rolls her eyes, wriggling uncomfortably. “In these _brilliant_ ideas of yours, why am _I_ always the one that ends up squashed into the floor?”

With a satisfied little smirk, Pippa ducks her head. She tugs Hecate’s coat to the side, skimming her lips over her collarbone, then her teeth.

“Because you’re beautiful,” Pippa explains, as if that makes even a shred of sense, “and because I don’t really care about making a Pentangel at all.”

“I see,” Hecate mumbles, because what else is there to say, _really,_ at the end of the day? She’s already lost her marbles and _lord knows_ how many brain cells. Sending an apology up to the powers that be, she glimpses at ‘Snowphie’ in the distance and wiggles her fingers.

Over three-quarters of an hour later, they eventually make it back to the front garden. Beside one of the flower beds, next to a smaller snow witch that was seemingly abandoned part way through, a familiar snowy figure is there to greet them. A hundred more kisses greet Hecate as well.

Humphrey, who unfortunately gets an eyeful through the kitchen window, simply grins.


	27. standing still and learning to be astonished

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry that this took such a long time to materialise. I took a small mental health break and writing this chapter was incredibly challenging so it ended up taking forever.
> 
> It's a reasonably long one so hopefully that partially makes up for the delay.
> 
> I really hope that you like it. It was tough to wrestle with so any comments are much appreciated. :)
> 
> The next one will be quite long as well but I hope to have a quicker turnaround!

Most of the afternoon passes without a hitch. Hecate and Pippa warm up by the fire, trading in their cold, stiff joints for pink fingers and toes. Elodie flits around various rooms insisting that she needs no assistance, all the while transmitting the frenetic aura of a bee bashing into the glass of a jam jar. It's exhausting to watch. Humphrey is pretending to read the paper, looking up intermittently to shake his head at his wife. 

When Elodie's fluctuating movements become too much for Hecate to ignore, she presses a brief kiss against Pippa’s palm before gliding over to help in the kitchen. She has a clear view of Pippa and her father from her new position, a fact that she finds to be embarrassingly pleasing. Her diligence can’t be faulted, but she has to admit that she might be a _little_ more efficient if she spent less time gawking at the blonde distraction like a lovesick fool. 

She removes several vials from the spice rack, lining them up on the island. Mulled wine simmers in front of Elodie on the stovetop and she stirs it with a wooden spoon. For a moment, Hecate has a fleeting memory of her own mother, preparing porridge with cinnamon. She bites the inside of her cheek. Such remembrances are few and far between these days and it catches her off guard.

From the snug, Pippa’s melodic voice can be heard jiving Humphrey. She’s cracking nuts for the table and the sound of splintering shells serves as a backing track.

“Your snow witch didn’t even have eyes, Daddy.” Hecate uncorks the lid of the cloves, tipping half a dozen into her hand. She has to suppress a chuckle at the genuine disbelief in Pippa’s tone.

“Yes, well we, ah, got a tad… _distracted,_ ” Humphrey admits sheepishly, jerking the sides of the newspaper. It creates a harsh flapping noise that hits Hecate’s eardrums with a thwack. She sets down a container of nutmeg, already bracing for the worst.

"By what?” Pippa quizzes, proceeding headlong into peril with alarming prowess. Hecate sighs deeply, closing her eyes. _Here we go._ Elodie continues to stir, appearing redder by the second.

Humphrey shrugs. “A free house.” 

There’s a loud crunch, accompanied by a squeak, as the nutcracker that Pippa is holding splits a walnut in her palm. Hecate peeks one eye open and through the small gap she observes Pippa’s lips puckering into an expression of abject disgust.

“Daddy! You _cannot_ be—this house is free almost _every_ day of the year, and you choose _today_ to…”

It’s a blessing, for all involved, that Pippa is shrewd enough to let her words fizzle out. The curse, unfortunately, is that Humphrey is totally unfazed, tossing a brazil nut into his mouth with a smug grin.

“Yes, it _is._ ” Humphrey chuckles and the flush that has spread over Elodie’s cheeks travels further and further, licking across the wings of her sternum. “What’s your point?”

 _“No!”_ Pippa shrieks, covering her ears and eyes in the most melodramatic, ineffective manner possible. “That is _unacceptable_ information. I’ve had enough.” She turns in her seat, staring through to Hecate with a sullen pout. “Hiccup, after dinner we are saging every corner of this property from top to bottom.”

Elodie strides over to the doorframe, partially obstructing Hecate’s line of sight as she clenches her elbows. “Humphrey, I recommend that you stop your juvenile crowing immediately or I will see to it that the snow witch is not the only one without eyes.” She moves over to where Pippa is sitting, brushing a hand against her shoulder. “Stop tormenting our daughter.”

"She asked,” Humphrey protests, raising his hand in the air to signal the obvious. He tuts, slumping further into his armchair. “Heaven forbid I have a little fun.”

“If you’re done sulking, please would you be kind enough to add some more kindling to the fire. In the hearth, that is, before you get any ideas.” She meanders back into the kitchen, shooting Hecate a despairing glance before turning off the stove.

When the wine has been carefully decanted into a gilded jug, the women return to the den. A low, cheerful song plays from the gramophone, lulling all occupants with its simple tune. Hecate feels content enough to let her hair down, in both the literal and metaphorical sense. She undoes the fastenings of her braid, winding it loose, and then pins back the top section, until her long waves spill over her shoulders like sheets of glinting obsidian.

Hecate and Pippa sit curled together on the sofa, their bodies so close that they almost merge into one another. Pippa’s arms wrap around Hecate’s waist and her head rests against the dip of her neck, unusually motionless. So motionless, in fact, that Hecate begins to wonder if she might have fallen asleep.

Elodie stitches small hexagons, sewing the beginnings of a patchwork quilt. Her rocking chair creaks pleasantly each time that she moves. Humphrey is doing a crossword in the paper, though from his frequent mutterings it does not seem to be going particularly well. His pen scribbles on the page, crossing something out. 

The atmosphere is so serene and unencumbered that Hecate has to will back tears. She’s not very successful. Pippa stirs in her embrace when one sneaks out, splashing onto her forehead. She jolts in alarm, shifting to view Hecate’s face, but her fears dissipate when she’s met with a wistful smile.

Pippa lifts Hecate’s hand, kissing the back of it, before holding it over her heart. She grins, settling back against Hecate’s shoulder with a hum. 

“I think the tree could do with a little sprucing up,” Pippa whispers into Hecate’s ear, quietly enough to avoid her mother overhearing. 

The object in question stands woefully in the corner, its branches weighed down by a deluge of ornaments that are unevenly spaced and lacking any real order. Some of them are so heavy that the needles are only centimetres above the floor.

Hecate gazes at Pippa fondly, releasing an accidental giggle that opens the floodgates. A delirious chuckle bursts out of Pippa’s mouth, her teeth scraping against Hecate’s skin as she tries in vain to muffle her amusement. They remain welded together, shaking with laughter, for what seems like forever. The wine was a definite mistake.

Sycorax is dressed in an obnoxious reindeer ensemble that Morgana eyes in horror, which really does not help matters. The whole scene, once taken in through the lens of hysteria, is too much to cope with.

Fortunately, neither Elodie nor Humphrey seem to mind. The latter barely looks up from his puzzle, though whether that’s because he’s engrossed or deliberately choosing not to ask is up for debate. Elodie continues to stitch, but she regards the pair with a tender expression. 

“So, this Mildred of yours,” Elodie says gently, taking a sip from her glass, “she sounds like a handful.” She sets aside her project, welcoming Sycorax onto her lap. The cat meows, though the sound has a shrill, grating quality to it that reminds Hecate of those non-magical children’s toys with dying batteries. Speckled paws knead against the afghan covering Elodie's legs, padding up and down in time with the tempo of the music.

Pippa laughs, squeezing Hecate’s knee. “Don’t let Hiccup fool you, Mother. She’s her favourite.”

The expression on Hecate’s face highlights exactly how unimpressed she is by Pippa's statement. “That girl has an affinity for sniffing out mischief like a bloodhound,” she utters with a soft sigh, closing her eyes. She blinks them open again, sliding her hand into Pippa’s. Their fingers thread together like brushing thistles. “Not dissimilar to someone else that I know.”

“That’s funny,” Pippa pipes back, fidgeting with the chain of her necklace, “her stubborn nature and proneness to blowing things up are very much reminiscent of someone that _I_ know.”

Hecate affords her a look of sheer indignation, tutting crossly. Before a war breaks out and someone loses a limb, Elodie wisely intervenes.

“And her studies, is she making progress?” Elodie strokes her nails down Sycorax’s back, smiling when the small being stretches out her body. The antlers prevent her from receiving her usual ear rub, but she seems as if she’s built up a high tolerance for Pippa’s nonsense. Hecate feels a strange kinship with her.

_Merlin._

“Yes, her marks show great improvement,” Hecate replies, unable to suppress the edge of pride in tone. 

It is _exceedingly_ annoying.

“She has a _brilliant_ teacher,” Pippa asserts fiercely, with so much unchecked adoration that Hecate’s lungs contract. The skin that is pressed against Pippa’s feels like it might be about to melt away. Hecate blushes and the heat of it builds rapidly, swimming through her arteries. “Her academic performance is coming along in leaps and bounds, but I admire her courage the most. She has a heart of gold and always tries to do the right thing, regardless of the consequences.”

Pippa’s grip on Hecate’s hand tightens, and for once in her life Hecate doesn’t have to fumble to read between the lines. She takes a laboured breath, holding it for as long as she can as if she’s not sure that the next one will contain any oxygen. Her eyes sting. Seizing what little clearheadedness is available, she glances over at Elodie, offering her a clumsy smile, before turning her attention fully to the blur of pink beside her. 

The words that she wants to say mock her from the end of her tongue, digging in grappling hooks and refusing to proceed any further. Frustration taps at her bones. There are so many things begging to be voiced that she just can’t seem to usher into being. With a shaky wobble, she pulls their joined fingers towards her. Using the tip of her nail, she traces a simple message over the back of Pippa’s hand, spelling out _“I love you”_ against her skin.

Hecate stares bashfully at Pippa, her heart lashing at her ribcage. There seems like a very real chance that it’s going to climb its way out. Her throat feels tight with emotion. A mist of pink consumes her as Pippa whisks forwards, looping her arms around Hecate’s neck and hugging her with such gusto that she momentarily sees stars.

“I _love_ you,” Pippa vows against the shell of Hecate’s ear, so faintly that Hecate feels the words more than she hears them. The space between them seems thick with electricity, almost volcanic. 

Hecate can’t even think. They continue to stare at each other for entirely too long, frozen still. All that she can see is Pippa’s shining eyes, her glowing cheeks, her laugh lines, and she wants nothing more than to toss aside every screaming reservation about _Humphrey_ and _Elodie_ and _their current location_ so that she can smear her mouth against Pippa’s dazzling smile.

Oh, _god,_ that was definitely too much wine.

Without lifting his gaze, Humphrey clears his throat. As if reading out a clue from his crossword, he speaks loudly. “Two words, each four letters. J-U-blank-T, K-I-gap-gap. Add three 'S's and what do we get? Something that will do us all a favour.” He throws down his paper, taking off his reading glasses and folding them. 

“Humphrey! _Honestly…_ ” Elodie chides, jerking around to glare at him so quickly that Sycorax jumps down from her perch. She swans over to join Morgana on a cushion by the fireplace. They curl around each other like yin and yang, with Sycorax relishing the opportunity to bat Morgana’s tail.

“ _What?_ If Thelma and Louise over there can stop making goo-goo eyes at each other and smooch it out already we _might_ actually get around to opening presents before I kick the bucket.” 

Hecate pales but Pippa is in such good spirits that she simply laughs, smacking an exaggerated kiss against Hecate’s lips. She drops one of her arms, shifting back just enough to distinguish the two witches as separate entities. 

With that out of the way, Humphrey chuckles, rubbing his hands together. He clicks his fingers and a tower of gifts appear in the centre of the room, teetering precariously. Hecate has never seen so many bows, accumulatively, in all her years.

Pippa slides down onto the floor, propping her back against Hecate’s calves. She starts divvying out the packages from a slew of relatives and family friends, wincing when she spies her present from Aunt Angelica. 

“It’s a kitchen timer,” Pippa huffs, before she’s even opened it, “she gets me the same thing every year.” Sure enough, it is. It takes every ounce of willpower that Hecate possesses to resist pointing out that using one might not go amiss. She values her organs enough to hold back.

The foursome exchange a steady stream of cloaks, boots and other items, picked out with care and devotion. Pippa gives her father a gaudy Christmas jumper with far too many bells, practically wrestling him into it when he refuses to show it off. The string of phrases that leave his mouth range from disgruntled to borderline obscene. Elodie is unavailable for comment because she is so overtaken by hysterics that she’s doubled over.

They swap a few more gifts, and then Pippa falls noticeably silent, turning to the two gifts that wait at her side. Her fingers fiddle with the ribbon circling one of the bundles, twisting the thin strand nervously. She scrambles to her feet, abandoning her spot on the carpet to slide in next to Hecate again.

It does not take a detective to work out that Pippa is off balance. She wriggles uncomfortably, biting at her lips. She won’t make eye contact, which unsettles every inch of Hecate’s body. Although she knows that her anxiety is baseless, a flicker of dread sparks in the middle of Hecate’s ribs. Seeing Pippa this ill at ease is unbearable and she can’t help but think of things like cramped walls and shrinking spaces and a room devoured by ice. Things like dark water and cinching brambles and jeering faces. 

Things like, _“As you wish it.”_

“Pippa, sweetheart, she’s going to love them,” Elodie offers kindly, tilting her head. Pippa’s swirling eyes snap to her mother’s and her shoulders sink slightly, shedding some of their tension. 

Hecate nearly chokes with relief. 

“Is that what you’re worried about?” Hecate asks, stroking her knuckles against Pippa’s jaw. When Pippa nods, Hecate laughs giddily, taking her hands and winding them through her own. “Darling, there’s no need. You’ve already given me far more than I ever dared to hope for.”

Unfortunately, her attempt to reassure Pippa seems to have the opposite effect. 

“That’s precisely the point. You deserve _everything,_ Hiccup, and you—”

Hecate leans down, picking up one of the parcels. “I am going to open this now,” she interrupts, deciding that the best course of action is to take the bull by the horns. It is covered in amethyst-coloured paper, secured neatly with a silver binding. Pippa’s fears are completely unfounded because when Hecate sees her name on the label, written in Pippa’s gorgeously chaotic handwriting, she experiences a surge of love so forceful that she’s close to sobbing already. 

She unwraps it carefully, with unnecessary precision, until she’s left holding a chunky, brown textbook. She feels faint. Genuinely faint, as if she’s been knocked upside down and dangled in the air by her feet. 

“It’s a copy of the book that you were reading the day that we—the day that we first met,” Pippa explains hastily, tripping over her tongue. She pulls her legs up, hugging them against her chest. 

Hecate feels like someone has swung a baseball bat straight at her skull and scored a home run with her head. “I know,” she replies, her voice barely audible. She traces her fingertips over the embossed lettering on the front, swallowing hard.

Pippa’s voice fluctuates and she lets out a wispy, shaky laugh that breaks half way. “A little beneath your degree of expertise, now, but I just thought—”

“It is _perfect,_ ” Hecate states firmly, seeking out Pippa’s palm. _“Thank you.”_ The smile that skids across Pippa’s face is more perfect still. 

With that same luminous, watery smile, Pippa readily lifts another package, hovering it towards Hecate. “I’ve had this one for a long time,” she reveals, her tone laced with what Hecate thinks might be nostalgia. Her eyelashes flutter, some of them stuck together by moisture, and the apples of her cheeks are tinged with the loveliest shade of pink imaginable. “Decades, actually. I mean, not _this_ exactly, but—well—” 

Pippa pinches her eyes closed, dropping her chin. Her sigh doesn’t leave her mouth but Hecate can feel it vibrating through her. She gives up on whatever she was going to say, placing the slim, rectangular gift over Hecate’s knees. “Blessed Yule, Hiccup.”

Anticipation whizzes through Hecate’s abdomen. She refuses to let go of Pippa’s hand as she peels back the paper, despite the fact that it makes the process incredibly cumbersome. Through a poorly oiled system of bracing their interlocked fingers on one end of the parcel and bending her elbow at an inadvisable angle on the other, the object is eventually freed from its cocoon.

Within the span of a second, Hecate stiffens and then sags, partially hunching over. Her shoulders hang forwards at an awkward slant. Nestled in her lap is a frame, about the size of a large photograph album. It is set out like a specimen board, complete with tiny inscriptions.

The first things that Hecate's eyes land on are three crimson petals, overlapping to form the shape of a flower. _Dahlia petals._ There are shards of pottery and pressed flora and a vivid, turquoise kingfisher feather, all unmistakably fragments from the altar in their turret. She sees a pearly, scallop shell from the beach beneath the Delphia cliffs and a bead of pink nail varnish that is partially smeared. She feels like she’s about to suffocate from holding her breath.

Pippa is twitching again, wringing her fingers. She watches as Hecate’s gaze falls on the most important keepsake of them all. Her mouth opens and closes, but Hecate is too mesmerised by what’s in front of her to notice. In the centre of the frame, above the words, _“from that awful night,”_ is a note written in Pippa’s looping, overly elaborate script.

_My dearest Hiccup,_

_I’ve borrowed your quill, I hope you don’t mind too much. I like sharing things with you, it feels…sacred, somehow. You’re asleep right now and you look so beautiful that my heart can hardly bear it._

_You’re my best friend, Hecate, the most precious person in the world to me. You’ll hate how sentimental that sounds, but it’s true, and this is my letter so I shall say what I please._

_I wonder, sometimes, if you’ve already realised my feelings for you. You know me better than anyone, even the parts that I try so desperately to conceal, and I fear that perhaps you are too kind and too faithful to tell me how foolish it is to nurture the small hope that you might feel the same._

_The way that you look at me makes every logical thought vanish from my head and each day it grows harder to stop myself from cutting off one of your stupid rants in the way that I long to. I want to kiss you. I want to kiss you until you forget about the bad things. I want to make you understand that all of those bits that you hate about yourself, I adore. I adore everything about you._

_I think that I might be in love with everything about you._

_One day soon, I wish to be brave enough to tell you exactly that._

_Yours,  
Pipsqueak_

There is no name big enough for the feeling that pulses through Hecate’s body, leaving her totally undone. She clamps her teeth tightly together, trying to prevent the thunderous clap of emotions that are clamouring to escape. Her mind has switched off completely. She only becomes aware of the fact that she hasn’t uttered anything at all when she sees Pippa fisting the material of her skirt, attempting to steady her trembling fingers.

“I just wanted you to have something special,” Pippa says very quietly, in a tone that suggests failure. “I know that they’re silly, but I hoped—”

“ _You_ are special,” Hecate interjects, moving the frame aside and twisting to stroke Pippa’s knuckles, “and they are _not_ silly, they are…” Her voice is thick with tears and she shakes her head, giving up on voicing anything worthwhile aloud. Instead, she smashes through every wall of doubt with a crowbar, sliding her hands up to cup Pippa’s jaw and kissing her solidly. 

Humphrey doesn’t issue any of his usual wisecracks. He can’t, not when his eyes are entirely misted over, observing the scene unfolding with pure affection.

All too soon, it is Hecate’s turn to be a nervous wreck. She flicks her wrist, summoning two packages that land at her feet with a thud. They are wrapped in bright, cerise paper, which Hecate did not enjoy purchasing. Her usual teller had stared at her like she’d gone mad, which was not an unfair assessment. After gawping at her as if she’d grown a second head, his lips had morphed into a wry smirk and Hecate had briefly contemplated sewing them shut. 

With a flustered smile, Hecate passes Pippa the smaller bundle. Her skin prickles. As Pippa tears into the gift with the patience of a _child,_ Hecate pulls in a wavering breath, willing herself to hold it together. This is just Pippa. _Just Pippa._ Wonderful, _astonishing_ Pippa, who has filled her universe with nothing but light from the first time that she saw her. 

_Damn it._ Hecate cannot seem to keep her treacherous heartbeat in check.

One of Pippa’s hands cradles the book that she’s uncovered, her palm curling around the spine. The other skims through the pages, pausing over each one to trail her fingertips across the paper. 

“It’s the collection of poetry I was reading on your birthday,” Pippa whispers, glancing at Hecate with an expression that can only be translated as one of absolute awe. 

Hecate’s tongue sticks to the top of her mouth as she tries to speak. “Yes,” she eventually pries out, dropping her eyes to her knees. She gulps, raising her chin again to meet Pippa’s eyes. “I illustrated it for you.”

A blissful, delirious little whimper gurgles up from Pippa’s lungs. “It’s beautiful,” Pippa grins, doing nothing to stem the tears that are slowly beginning to trickle over her cheeks. “I love it.”

“I love _you,_ ” Hecate wants to say, for what seems like the hundredth time today. Rather than gushing like the sappy nitwit that she’s apparently become, Hecate elects to sidestep that impulse. Biting the bullet, she gives Pippa the second present before she loses courage. 

Hecate knows that Pippa recognises the canvas instantly. She appears shellshocked. The background is an abstract watercolour, boasting the most spellbinding shades of pink and gold. _It’s the painting from the roof._ That alone would probably be enough to draw enough tears from Pippa to flood the room, but when her eyes fix on the addition to the foreground, Hecate momentarily wonders whether she should start building an ark.

Pippa clamps a hand over her mouth, muffling a sob. At the centre of the piece, painstakingly created with gouache, four smiling faces shine back brightly. A portrait of Elodie and Humphrey and Hecate and Pippa, interwoven and beaming. _Their family._

“I thought,” Hecate confesses shyly, pinching her sleeve, “that as I… _misappropriated_ the original, you might accept this as an adequate substitute.”

 _“Adequate?”_ Pippa sniffs with an incredulous laugh, her gaze snapping to Hecate’s like a magnet. “It’s _extraordinary._ ” 

“Well,” Hecate mumbles, and that’s as far as she gets. Her cheekbones are nearly scarlet. She can see Humphrey in her periphery, swatting at his eyes.

Pippa rises to her feet, depositing the painting into her mother’s lap, before retracing her steps and kneeling beside Hecate on the sofa. “You are the best thing that has ever happened to me, Hiccup,” she proclaims shakily, hugging her with such ferocity that Hecate feels lightheaded. A wet nose presses into Hecate’s neck, grazing over the ligaments. Hecate’s heart is jam-packed with happiness and for once it doesn’t scare her at all.

Elodie’s lush voice splits through the silence. “Hecate, sweetheart, this is phenomenal.” The contours of her face are highlighted by the fire, making it appear as though she is glowing. “Oh, _Humphrey,_ you look so handsome.”

“Don’t I always?” Humphrey scoffs, working his way through a handful of nuts.

“She has to go and make it creepy,” Pippa mutters against Hecate’s skin. She pecks Hecate’s jaw before leaning back, slouching against the cushions. Her thin legs curl up, draping over Hecate’s thighs. 

With very little warning, the atmosphere in the room takes on a strange charge. Elodie and Pippa trade curious, compassing glances that Hecate doesn’t know how to interpret. The former seems hesitant, as if she’s trying to decide how to proceed with something. On anyone else other than the Pentangles, the expression that Elodie wears would instil panic in Hecate’s bones. Under these circumstances, however, she finds that she is content to wait for things to play out.

In a sweet, tentative tone, Elodie finally addresses her. “I have something else for you as well.” 

Humphrey coughs, though it seems like he’s forced it out. She gets up from her chair, walking over skittishly.

Her body displays odd, jarring movements that make it appear as though she’s experiencing electric shocks each time that her steps connect with the floor. She extends the small bundle, wrapped in brown parcel paper and bound with a dark green ribbon, towards Hecate, chewing her lip. 

“It’s from all of us,” Pippa adds quickly, as if the comment might somehow alleviate some of Elodie’s jittering. A series of lines appear between Hecate’s eyebrows as she accepts the item, increasing in depth as she turns it over in her hands. 

She opens it like she is excavating a rare historical artefact. Which, as it turns out, is not far off the mark at all. Every synapse in her brain slams to a halt and then flares back to life in one go, like the switch on a generator has been flipped off and on. Her hands are clammy and quivering. She emits a startled whimper, though she doesn't hear it over the thumping in her ears.

A magenta frame rests between her fingers, matching the one on her mantel. She can feel something gnawing at her gut with sharp fangs. She shivers, brushing the pad of her thumb over the outline of the polaroid that lies beneath the glass. 

Staring up at her is a beautiful raven-haired witch with green eyes, sitting at what appears to be a picnic. She is smiling, holding up the chubby fist of the small girl who is nestled in her arms. One of the toddler’s hands is clenched around a familiar timepiece and Hecate’s own reaches out, imitating the gesture. Scrawled at the bottom, in violet ink, there is a date and a name.

_Jillian._

Hecate makes a peculiar raspy sound, her breath sticking to the sides of her throat. She just about manages to lift her face to Pippa’s, finding a pair shining, chocolate eyes regarding her carefully. Pippa’s fingers drift forwards, squeezing Hecate’s forearm.

“I know you don’t have any photographs of her,” Pippa says, her voice breaking slightly as it tumbles out. The words are gravelly and uneven. Her lower lip shakes, as if she is not sure that she has done the right thing.

Hecate does her best to keep her tone steady but it comes out hoarse regardless. “How did you…” The question ebbs away from her, eluding her grasp.

“You see, the thing is,” Elodie rattles off at great speed, her pupils darting wildly, “Pippa mentioned that she went to Redgrave’s, and so did Humphrey’s sister, Beatrix, so I did a little digging and…well, anyway, Marlene’s brother is the same age as you, and, as I discovered, there used to be a monthly outing for—”

“Basically, Mother fancies herself to be some kind of amateur sleuth, Hiccup, which I’m sure you agree is quite frankly hilarious and terrifying in equal measure.” Pippa tucks a strand of hair behind Hecate’s ear, gazing at her softly. Lowering her pitch, she runs her fingers over Hecate’s cheekbone. “Are you alright, my darling?”

The sound of Pippa’s caring voice falls over Hecate like autumn rain. It caresses her with its loveliness, but it also untethers the only part of her spine that is holding her upright. She buckles, folding almost in half with a weak sob and pressing her face into one of her palms. The corners of the frame poke into her ribs but she welcomes the sensation. It is proof that she is still a person, and not just a nebulous swirl of the muddled thoughts and emotions that are currently clanging around in her head.

Without letting another moment slip by, Pippa gathers Hecate into her arms, tangling her fingers through her hair and tucking Hecate’s face against her neck. Hecate shows no signs of resistance, though her hand clings to the photograph as if she doesn't dare to let go. 

She cries against Pippa’s collarbone, barely even cognisant of where she is or what’s going on. She doesn’t see Elodie’s expression of total panic or Humphrey’s wide eyes or Pippa looking between both of them like she’s caught in a riptide. All that she can do is wind her arm around Pippa’s waist and wait for the storm to pass.

When it eventually recedes, Hecate becomes aware of Elodie’s slender form squeezed into the gap beside her, stroking patterns over her back. Humphrey is crouched on the floor in front of her, his large hands anchored against her knees. 

_A Pentangle sandwich._

To everyone’s surprise, Hecate _laughs._ She laughs and laughs, clasping Humphrey’s hand and kissing Elodie’s cheek and then kissing Pippa with every ounce of elated wonder that sings through her veins. The trio laugh as well, probably from blind, dizzying relief, until the whole room rings with joy.

“I would never wish to replace your mother, Hecate,” Elodie murmurs, running a finger below eyelashes, “but I want you to know that, well, you’re always going to have us. You won’t even be alone again.”

They are there, real and solid and _there,_ surrounding her with so much love that Hecate doesn’t know how she’s ever going to be able to express her gratitude.

“I love you,” Hecate croaks, mostly to Elodie but really to all of them, the three celestial people who have brought her back to life without ever asking for anything in return.

“I know, honey.” Warm fingers tap the end of Hecate’s chin, just like they have so many times before. “I know.”

With a crooked little grin, Pippa takes the frame from Hecate’s hand. She peers at it for a few moments before bringing it towards her, pressing a kiss to the glass over Jillian’s face. “Thank you,” she smiles, her lashes wet and glistening. “Don’t worry, we’ll look after her now.”

It is such a _ridiculous,_ sweet, _Pippa_ thing to do that Hecate feels like her heart might never recover.

They opt for burning their Yule log inside this year. Pippa insists that sending their wishes up the chimney will be a better alternative given the unrelenting snow. 

The bundle of wood is perched on the coffee table, waiting patiently to receive its cargo. Tufts of sheep’s wool and cotton are secured around the branch, ready to be spun into possibilities. Pippa attaches a piece of cloth from a torn school pennant and Elodie adds one dried iris. Tokens of love, Pippa professes. 

Hecate, though she will certainly not admit to doing so, weaves a thin, unidentifiable feather into the mix, the one remnant of Mildred’s unsightly bird. She hopes, in some small way, that it might bring the girl some good fortune. She’s getting _far_ too drippy, but it’s apparently one of the side effects of being around the Pentangles.

When it comes time to put pen to paper, Hecate has less difficulty deciding what to write than might be expected. She wishes for the same thing that she’d wished for years earlier, that she’s always wished for, even when it had seemed like nothing but an impossible dream. 

“This, and them, and _her._ ”


	28. Love still as once you loved, deeply

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Firstly, I just want to apologise for taking so long to post this. I won't bore you with the details, but I've had some things going on in my personal life which I didn't anticipate and they have been really rough to deal with. Also, I really wanted this chapter to be true to the story and it took a long time for me to work it into something that I was happy with.
> 
> That being said, I really hope that you are all still with me and like the last couple of chapters of the fic. There's one last chapter to go, but when I post next time I will make this into a collection so that anyone who is interested can follow as I plan to write some one-shots within this same little universe (some more Humphrey and Elodie antics, and oodles of fluff).
> 
> It needs so much editing, but once my brain is back up and running I will come back and fix it. I really hope that it doesn't disappoint. My mind is a bit muddled at the moment so it's hard to gauge.
> 
> Please let me know if you enjoy the chapter, I could really use some happy comments right now.
> 
> This one is for Mai, and HicsqueakAndUnicorns, and Isles241. <3

It is well past midnight, closer to the witching hour, in fact, when Hecate and Pippa retire to the roof, leaving Humphrey and Elodie, who are still dancing, to polish off the last of the eggnog. The snow below makes the sky appear almost coral, despite the late hour. A warming spell won’t quite cut it, so Pippa industriously lugs up a small heater to tide them through. They string up a dome of lanterns and tiny bulbs over their heads, wound together with spindly vines that boast iridescent blossoms. 

Pippa sits between Hecate’s legs, with her head tipped back against a bony clavicle. Things seem to be saturated with magic. Too heavenly, almost, to be real.

“They really love you, you know?” Pippa’s felicitous voice unravels softly, like a flower opening.

Hecate’s chest _aches._ Instinctively, she drops her chin forwards until it’s perched on Pippa’s shoulder. Her skin feels hot, even through her turtleneck, and Hecate’s face dips further, her nose burrowing into the fabric. She breathes in the scent of their washing powder, the one that Pippa insists is worth the unconscionable price tag _“because it smells like spring”_. The one that Hecate buys every month without complaint because, _infuriatingly,_ Pippa, as usual, is right. 

_She smells like spring._

Hecate searches for a reply, though words seem elusive. She doesn’t dare to say that it’s not true when she knows, inexplicably, that it is. She won’t cheapen it with a lie, this sacred wonder that she’s found. 

Still, it weighs heavily against her ribs, the feeling that she has wrestled an ember from the ashes. That she, like Hades, dark and gloomy and licked by death, has somehow convinced three emissaries of goodness to smuggle her the light.

“I don’t deserve it,” she mumbles, the words tumbling out before she can even taste them. She hides her eyes, as if doing so might make the sentence disappear as well as the world in front of her. 

_Why? Why does her mind always do this?_ She curses inwardly, tearing at her lip with her teeth. Today has been one of the _happiest_ of Hecate’s life but still the blackness snatches at her, prodding at her flesh with its rotting fingers.

Pippa scoffs, though the way that it resonates sounds as though she is trying not to cry. “You deserve it more than anyone, Hecate. And how can they not, when you’re _you?_ ” She lifts Hecate’s hand, pressing her mouth against the line of her knuckles. “It makes me very happy. _You_ make me very happy.”

A sizeable knot forms in Hecate’s throat. It won’t budge, no matter how many times she swallows. “I—I meant what I said. I love them, too.”

Pippa pivots her torso, tilting her head up to look at Hecate. Her eyes sparkle with tears. “I know that, darling. And so do they.”

With a soft sigh, she kisses the ridge of Hecate’s jaw. The gesture is so tender, so pure, that Hecate fears that her heart is about to come flying out of her mouth. Her eyelids drift closed and she can see neon patterns swirling behind them.

“Do you remember what you said to me, that night we came up here after your skating contest?” Pippa asks, her breath trailing over Hecate’s skin like warm lace.

A sense of nostalgia settles at the back of Hecate’s sternum, purling and gleaming. She smiles, resting her hand over Pippa’s hip. “That I felt as though I could see the whole universe from this rooftop. That I could almost reach out and touch it.” 

Pippa’s eyes never move from Hecate’s as she brings up her fingers, grinning, to graze her thumbs over angular cheekbones. “Well, I still can.”

The shells of Hecate’s ears burn and she’s reasonably confident that her face is beetroot. “You’re an incorrigible flirt, Pippa Pentangle,” she murmurs, staring at her lap, her teeth getting in the way of any real censure because apparently her smile refuses to stop growing.

Pippa giggles, though it’s shuddery, and brushes her hand down along the bend of Hecate’s wrist. She links their pinky fingers together, squeezing gently. “It’s a good job that you don’t find me irritating then, isn’t it?” 

The bubbling feeling expands, leaving Hecate almost woozy. She’s reminded of a different night, and many others, when Pippa’s vibrant laughter had been the only thing tethering her to the world. She glances at Pippa from underneath damp lashes. _“It is.”_

Pippa’s answering beam is refulgent enough to chase away the bad things. With a small purr, she relaxes back against Hecate, stretching out her limbs. They spend a long time mapping out the sky with their fingertips, pointing to the various glinting formations and clusters. Through the milky pink mist, they seem more enchanting than ever.

“Do you think that the stars like the snow?” Pippa hums quietly, opening her palm to slide it against Hecate’s. It is such an _absurd_ thing to be asked that Hecate momentarily flounders. Her mouth purses, as if she’s going to appeal to logic, but she catches her lip instead, biting down. For some reason, the innocence of Pippa’s odd question makes her eyes well up. 

“Perhaps,” Hecate muses aloud, dotting a kiss over Pippa’s ear. It’s not quite a yes or a no, and truthfully Hecate is not sure that she wants to land on a particular conclusion. Sometimes, _just maybe,_ it’s nice to suspend disbelief. “The Northern Crown _is_ especially bright tonight.” 

As soon as the words leave her mouth, Hecate knows, unequivocally, that they are a mistake. Pippa tenses in her arms, the muscles in her back contracting so forcefully that Hecate feels the ripple like an earthquake. Every notch in her spine bolts together, and the hand in Hecate’s own trembles.

“I hate that constellation,” Pippa spits, her voice so low and scorching that it is almost a hiss. Hecate’s heart throbs violently, as if the blood is trying to find the emergency exit hatch. The word ‘hate’, levelled against anything by Pippa, is no throwaway remark. She's only heard it used once, in fact, in such a context, and the memory prickles against her skin.

“Oh,” Hecate mutters weakly, cursing how measly it sounds dangling in the space between them. It doesn't take a great deal of genius to figure out why Pippa detests the story of Ariadne, stranded and desolate. Betrayed by the very person that she rescued from ruin. She has the sense that she’s watching herself in slow motion on repeat, stepping onto a landmine. 

_Spectacular foolishness, Hecate. First class._

Pippa turns in her hold, her fingers gripping Hecate’s against her thigh fiercely. “I’m sorry, my darling,” she supplies ruefully, failing to meet Hecate’s eyes. The apples of her cheeks are flushed and her eyebrows are pinched together. “It’s just that—”

“I know.” Hecate’s reply is as abrupt as it is sharp, as though it’s been stabbed out by a knife. She raises her free hand, smoothing it along the contour of Pippa’s jaw. Her tongue darts out to moisten her lip and Pippa repositions her legs, one falling each side of Hecate’s slender waist. Hecate continues, her tone milder this time. “There’s nothing to be sorry for.”

Smiling that transfixing smile that reduces Hecate’s brain to oatmeal, Pippa circles her arms around Hecate’s neck. _Gaia, send help._

“I never brought anyone else here, to the house,” Pippa admits, evidently following the tangent of a spiderweb that Hecate cannot untangle. The admission must be connected, Hecate is sure, though _how_ she can’t quite fathom. “I _couldn’t,_ ” she elaborates, her lower lip wobbling before she plucks it back into her mouth, “not when—it just wouldn’t have been…” Her voice dies out and Hecate feels the loss immediately, as if the oxygen has been sucked out of her own lungs. 

Hecate's arteries seem to be narrowing. She flinches, shutting her eyes. “Pippa, I—”

 _“Hush,”_ Pippa cuts in, placing four fingers over Hecate’s moving lips. When she’s satisfied that Hecate’s inevitable apology has died in her throat, she draws her hand back, using it to trace around the bumps at the top of Hecate’s spine. “Daddy was right, Hiccup. You never lost us, not for a moment.”

Hecate blanches, ducking her head. “Because _I_ was the one—”

“No, you _twit,_ ” Pippa laughs, flicking Hecate’s shoulder. Pippa's expression is magnetic, her irises reflecting the glowing canopy and shimmering with fondness. Despite the cacophony of guilt that screams in Hecate's mind, it gradually dawns on her that Pippa is grinning, her features radiant and open. Pippa guides her face nearer, running the tip of her nose down the bridge of Hecate’s. “Even—even when…” 

Her broken exhale floats out like a moth experimentally beating new wings. The bats in Hecate’s stomach adopt a similar rhythm. They flit faster, hurtling higher and higher, their pings ricocheting as they flap up the tunnel of Hecate’s gullet. She worries that they might come surging forth at any moment, winching apart her jaw like an old snare.

Pippa sweeps up one of Hecate’s curls, twirling it around her finger. It seems to reassure her, somehow, and she proceeds headlong, the swell of her chest stretching along Hecate’s torso. 

“There’s nothing that you could’ve done, nothing that you _could_ do, that would make me love you any less. That would make _them_ love you any less.” Pippa shivers, pressing her palms flat across the sides of Hecate’s ribcage. “We’re yours, Hiccup, and you’re…you’re _ours._ ”

An all-consuming feeling, no longer foreign to Hecate, bolts through her body like a streak of lightning. 

_Joy._

It very nearly immobilises her. She just about manages to bend forwards, slanting her mouth over Pippa’s with as much reverence as she can muster. Slender fingers wind through Pippa’s hair, tugging, urging her closer even though there’s nowhere to go. Hecate isn’t certain, but she has a faint suspicion that she might be crying. She can taste salt, and sunshine, like a day at the seashore.

Pippa weaves her arms around Hecate’s shoulders like ivy, holding her steady. Just like ivy, which survives long after its host plant has withered, Hecate imagines that the way that Pippa clings to her, the way that she exudes vitality and adoration with every smiling kiss, will somehow outlive both of them, inking its way into the pages of history.

Plump, pink lips beam down at her when they part, stained with smudges of red. “I was thinking that we could toast some marshmallows,” they utter, though at first Hecate is too hypnotised to process the words in order. When she eventually slots them together, they offer little clarity.

 _“Marshmallows?”_ Hecate blinks furiously, licking the last remnants of lipstick from her mouth. Her eyebrow quirks. “Pipsqueak, we are _not_ making marshmallows at two o’clock in the morning.”

Is she hallucinating? What exactly was _in_ that wine?

“Actually, it’s nearly three,” Pippa chirps, doing something with her eyelashes that definitely steers both of them towards peril, “and not _making_ them, Hiccup. _Toasting_ them.”

Hecate grimaces at her, pouting crossly. _“No.”_

Obviously, ten minutes, and a boatload of bickering, later, Hecate finds herself with a twig in her hand, poking a third atrociously gooey glob into a purple flame. _Obviously,_ because why would it _not_ be a good idea to consume an obscene amount of sugar when they need to sleep soon?

Pippa’s legs hang over Hecate’s thighs as she reclines in her lap, her arms looped loosely around a pale neck. Having concluded, rather astutely, that anything that involves _Pippa, fire, and food_ is best avoided, Hecate assumes culinary duties. She snorts, shaking her head. The term ‘culinary’ seems like a reach, but that’s hardly the biggest red flag that she’s taken leave of her senses. 

Hecate isn’t even eating the marshmallows, _perish the thought._ Instead, she dangles the golden brown sludge in front of Pippa, waiting patiently. Fingertips that are already alarmingly sticky curl around the treat, sliding it from the end of the stick and into Pippa’s mouth.

“Thank you,” Pippa says dreamily, humming with contentment. She rolls her cheek onto Hecate’s collarbone, her eyes falling closed.

“I think that’s quite enough,” Hecate states, clearing away the flame and other apparatus with a flick of her wrist. She rubs her thumb over Pippa’s chin, removing a string of sugar. 

The feeling of Pippa against her, drowsy and blissful, her lips drawn into a lazy little half-smile, ebbs through Hecate’s chest like summer waves. Like the soft, melodious tune of the jewellery box that once belonged to her mother, with a tiny ballerina twirling in a tulle skirt. 

After she was gone, Hecate had wound it up over and over, twisting the key so many times that the cogs had started to dull and the movements became jerky and irregular. Her father, who hated music, and dancing, and happiness, had smashed it with a bottle, until nothing remained but shards of mirrored glass that Hecate could never fit back together, no matter how hard she’d tried.

Now, in the low light, gazing down at the slightly smudged mascara along Pippa’s waterline, the small crinkles that appear at the corners of her mouth, Hecate sees all of those shattered fragments reassembling, every jagged edge reuniting with its missing piece.

Pippa is worth entertaining each ridiculous whim that has Hecate doubting her own mental faculties. She’s worth _everything._

Hecate kisses Pippa’s forehead, brushing a blonde strand behind her ear. Dark lashes flutter and Pippa regards her with an unreadable expression, her eyes brimming with something that sends sparks through Hecate’s abdomen. 

Pippa shudders against her, and Hecate’s hands shoot up, travelling over the lengths of Pippa’s upper arms. “Are you cold, darling?”

A notable pause follows, interrupted by a strange sigh. There’s something about the noise that sets off alarm bells in Hecate’s mind, as much as she attempts to mute them. Pippa parts her lips, splaying her palm over Hecate’s heart. “No, I'm not.”

It’s not just the sound, nor Pippa’s denial, that concerns Hecate. Pippa is markedly restless, fidgeting in Hecate’s lap, and her free hand alternates between tapping her kneecap and fiddling with her necklace.

“Pipsqueak, what’s the matter?” There’s a coppery tang in Hecate’s mouth that is incredibly unpleasant. Probably from biting the inside of her cheek so hard that she’s nicked the skin.

Pippa peers up at her, unblinking, as if she’s fighting the impulse to break eye contact. Her tongue darts out, charting a course over her top lip. “I have a confession to make.”

_Oh, goddess._

Hecate’s heart thumps so fitfully that she’s surprised that it isn’t audible. She glides her fingernails over Pippa’s back, trying to calm her. “Were the marshmallows too singed for your liking?” How she manages to coax out a wisecrack is anyone’s guess, but she’s relieved to hear Pippa’s high-pitched giggle.

“Shut up,” Pippa grins, giving Hecate a playful shove. It seems to relax her somewhat, though she continues to vibrate against Hecate’s frame. She grips the hem of Hecate’s sleeve, twisting it between her fingers. “The wishes that we made, I—I didn’t write one this year.”

The admission beggars belief and, for a brief moment, Hecate wonders if she’s misunderstood. It seems improbable that Pippa, who has been known to pen impassioned essays on various subjects purely for her own amusement, would miss an opportunity to set the world to rights. 

“Oh?” There’s that godforsaken word again, because apparently her ability to pass as someone even remotely coherent has been demolished. _Splendid._

Pippa eyes her curiously, which, in fairness, is warranted. Hecate’s forehead feels clammy and her riotous nerves must be about as inconspicuous as the sun. 

“I wanted to save mine and make it now,” Pippa explains, in a quiet voice that seems to cling to her throat. “Some things are too important to leave up to the universe.”

Sycorax must be up on the shingles somewhere, prowling around, because there is a vague jingling sound on the breeze. It resonates in Hecate’s head, only adding to the groggy state of her thoughts.

She stares at Pippa in confusion, a wrinkle carved between her brows. “What is it?”

Pippa’s gaze falters, wandering downwards. She remains silent for what seems like an eternity, and it takes every ounce of mettle Hecate has to remain in place without surrendering to sheer panic. Her worry relents, marginally, when Pippa grabs hold of her hand, pressing tightly. 

“You know, the Winter Solstice marks the darkest night of the year. In a few days, the evenings will start getting lighter and lighter,” Pippa finally babbles, playing with Hecate’s fingers. 

A comment about the planet tilting on its axis provides absolutely no assistance to Hecate’s understanding. Her frown deepens. “Yes, I was aware,” she replies drily, though her breathing is laboured.

“Every year, I wonder, will the darkness honour its side of the bargain? Will the light be strong enough and brave enough to come back?” Pippa chews on her bottom lip, stroking the pad of her thumb over Hecate’s knuckles. “And each time, no matter how bleak it seems, the light returns, just as beautiful as ever.”

Pippa’s sweet voice wraps around Hecate like a cloak of comfort and she regrets her tart response immediately. Her cheeks are unbearably hot and tears swarm at the back of her eyelids. 

“I lost hope for a while that the sun would rise again,” Pippa says, raising Hecate’s hand to bring it to her lips, “but she keeps her promise. She never lets me down.” The hint of a smile ghosts across Pippa’s features, even though she is shaking.

A hard lump builds at the base of Hecate’s throat again. She has let Pippa down, more than once, and the shame of it scrapes against her skin.

“You’re my best friend, Hecate. Always have been, always will be, but the thing is…” Pippa rambles, firing out words as if she’s gambolling down a hill and scattering them like confetti, and Hecate feels like she’s been clipped on Pippa’s way down, can do nothing but hurtle along right beside her. “No matter what happens, that won’t change, even—not if—it’s just us, _you and me,_ Hiccup and Pipsqueak.”

Pippa breathes heavily, letting out a long groan and winding a lock of hair around her finger. At least, Hecate’s relatively confident that that’s what’s happening in front of her. She’s not hugely paying attention. Somewhere down the rabbit hole, her brain snags on things like _“but”_ , and _“even”_ , and _“just”_ , and she struggles desperately not to think the worst, not to picture her entire existence shattering in her hands.

“You made me marshmallows,” Pippa gushes, with a chuckle that morphs into a sob midway. Hecate isn't sure what she’d been expecting, but it certainly wasn’t that. She’s mystified. _Bewildered._

_What else is new?_

“I wasn't aware that I had a choice,” Hecate attempts to tease, but it’s a bit too casual, a bit too flimsy. She cradles Pippa’s face, dropping a kiss over her right eyebrow. “It wasn’t much trouble, really.”

“You gave Snowphie your scarf.” 

Hecate honestly begins to contemplate whether this whole Yule has been a fever dream because she doesn’t recall ever finding conversations this exacting to follow.

 _Patience._ Patience is the key when it comes to Pippa.

Hecate eyes her warily, searching for meaning. “I did,” she confirms slowly.

“You ate one of those muffins even though they were practically radioactive,” Pippa giggles, but her voice sounds wet as it hangs between them. She covers her face with her hands.

Whether or not they actually _were_ muffins remains up for debate, but that is not something that Hecate deems wise to broach right now. _Or ever._

In spite of herself, Hecate laughs, partly to release some of the tension that has mounted inside of her lungs. Mostly because she’s suddenly overcome by the realisation that this is _Pippa,_ _her_ Pippa, who is kindness and sunbeams and safety personified. _There’s no need to be afraid._

She hugs Pippa to her chest, threading her fingers through her hair. _“Yes,”_ Hecate responds, kneading Pippa’s scalp with gentle ministrations. 

Although Pippa leans into her touch, her hands arching against Hecate’s shoulders and demanding that there is no space left between their bodies, the cheeks that meet Hecate’s when Pippa lifts her head are ruddy and raw. 

_Merlin, have mercy._

Hecate winces, settling on a white lie. She tries to play it off calmly. “They weren’t _that_ terrible, Pipsqueak.”

“You _see…_ ” Tears shake loose from Pippa’s eyes as she moves her head back and forth, splashing onto the front of Hecate’s dress. And no, Hecate does _not_ see. She frantically scurries to make sense of why Pippa is so out of sorts, why she continues to cry with the loveliest smile in full bloom across her face.

“I—” Hecate begins, worrying her lip between her teeth, and the sentence disintegrates because it leads nowhere.

“I’m saying this all _wrong,_ ” Pippa whines, swatting at a clump of hair that has stuck to her cheek. She hits her thigh with her fist, panting faintly. The ragged breath that she hauls into her mouth does nothing to still Hecate’s pounding heart. Seemingly, however, it does help Pippa to brace for impact.

She unclasps her necklace, pinching the end of the chain and lowering it into her palm. The silver links reflect the colour of Pippa’s magic as she casts her hand over the pendant, conjuring their star. She gives it to Hecate.

“I love you,” she exclaims plainly, with a small nod. Hecate gets the impression that she’s centring herself, grasping onto the one solid thought that she can, which makes her feel dizzy. Pippa blushes, toppling forwards to conceal her face against Hecate’s throat. She lets out a peculiar gurgling sound, her eyelashes transferring a sheen of wetness onto Hecate’s skin. “You’re the love of my life, Hecate, but—well, the thing is…”

If Hecate never hears the word _‘but’_ again for the rest of her days, it will be too soon. She meditates on whether it might be possible for a person to unknowingly come apart at the seams, their body fraying like a worn rope. All of her senses seem to be failing her. She doesn't trust her own tongue, so she stays quiet.

What is the thing? 

“The thing is, I was wondering—well, _hoping,_ really—that perhaps, if it wouldn’t be too much trouble,” Pippa whispers, her lips quivering, jittering like a tree in a storm and talking at a million miles a minute and Hecate’s _damn_ pulse beats so relentlessly that she’s almost too deafened to hear when Pippa finishes, timidly, “whether you might like to be my wife, Hecate?”

The universe slams to a standstill as Hecate’s heart catapults into her mouth. Her soul, if there is such a thing, seems to have unmoored itself. It is up above them, somewhere, _everywhere,_ adrift in a nebulous haze of neon galaxies and comets and swirling meteorites.

When the fog in her eyes dissipates, she’s left with a view of Pippa, swaying anxiously, covered in tears and grinning nervously and so unfathomably gorgeous that Hecate feels like she’s watching an aurora in motion.

Hecate’s face is blank for a moment, frozen, but then she beams, blissful and honest and Pippa can see moonlight spilling out of her mouth, almost blinding. 

_Oh._

She emits a startled sob, burying her face against Pippa’s clavicle, wet and wonderful and smiling so wide that Pippa can feel her teeth.

Hecate feels shy, suddenly, _so shy,_ and she’s overwhelmed by the magnitude of the happiness that sings through her like a sunrise. She takes note of Pippa’s warmth against her, the fingers skimming the length of her spine, the star trapped cool and luminous in her fist. 

She thinks of Pippa’s bravery and her endless, endless heart. Pippa, who is always late, no matter the occasion, who has so many bottles cluttering the ledge of the bath that Hecate had suggested opening her own apothecary. Pippa, who eats like a _child,_ who still blows dandelion seeds into the wind and collects heart-shaped pebbles, _“just because”_. Pippa, who is so good, and true, and boundlessly beautiful.

Hecate feels as if the whole solar system has fallen from the sky and placed its brilliance inside her chest. She is honoured. _Dumbfounded._ “I love you,” she blurts out, chuckling, the blubbery, delirious sound sticking between them. Apparently, that’s now her default response to profound emotions. It is going to be rather detrimental to her reputation, _but what does that matter, really?_

Pippa runs her hand through Hecate’s curls, soothing, loving, rooting her in reality. “Will you?” Pippa entreats, her eyes crimping in the corners as she studies Hecate’s face. “Will you marry me, Hiccup?”

Any disbelief that Hecate might otherwise feel is tempered by years of Pippa’s faithful sweetness, her immutable courage. She gazes at Pippa, tears streaming down her cheeks and dripping from her chin. “Yes, Pipsqueak,” she answers with a choked laugh, as if if it’s the most obvious thing in the world, because it is. “Yes, _of course_ I will.”

“Well, that’s settled, then,” Pippa declares firmly, as if she’s putting to bed a disagreement. And then she giggles, wiping her eyes, smearing mascara over her face as she rises to bump her mouth against Hecate’s, nearly missing because she’s grinning so widely that her aim is impaired. She tangles her hands around the back of Hecate’s neck, keeping her steady as she lavishes kiss after kiss over her smile.

Hecate hears bells again, which she chalks up to her own giddiness, but Pippa pulls back with something akin to a scowl plastered across her features.

“For the _love_ of—” Pippa’s nostrils flare. She glances somewhere behind them, shouting over her shoulder. “You morons can come out now.”

Hecate’s cheeks flush as Elodie and Humphrey, looking horribly guilty, appear in the window frame above them. Humphrey offers an awkward wave, which Elodie promptly catches with her hand. She yanks him, magic crackling around them, and then they are both on the roof, staring at Hecate and Pippa with matching gawky expressions.

Pippa narrows her eyes at her father, huffing. “If you want to be surreptitious in future, 007, I suggest that you don’t wear that.” She snorts, gesturing at his attire. “Nothing if not predictable.”

Elodie smacks his bicep with her palm. “For heaven’s _sake,_ Humphrey, I told you to take that thing off.”

“How the hell was I supposed to know that she’d rigged me up like a bloody burglar alarm?” Humphrey grouches, folding his arms. “And anyway, I like the jumper. It’s festive.”

Elodie shakes her head at Humphrey, intentionally slowly. “You are as dozy as a dormouse,” she tuts, glowering at him incredulously.

Their bickering is interrupted by Pippa, who has clearly heard enough. “I know how much you value tradition, darling, but I…I wasn’t sure who to ask, you see.” She strokes Hecate’s cheekbone, sucking her lip. “So I consulted Ada. And then I asked Daddy.”

She half turns, addressing all of them with exaggerated irritation. “As you can imagine, after doing so, I immediately realised my error.”

“I vetted her quite thoroughly, I assure you,” Humphrey chimes in, puffing out his chest. 

_“Literally,”_ Pippa complains, frowning. “He read me the riot act, Hiccup, which, _by the way,_ I maintain was entirely unnecessary.”

He shrugs. “What can I say? I take my responsibilities very seriously.”

“And then he cried,” Pippa smirks, lacing her fingers through Hecate’s.

Humphrey scoffs. “I did nothing of the sort.”

“Oh, Humphrey, that’s lovely,” Elodie trills, clasping her hand over her heart. Her eyes twinkle like fairground lights.

Hecate is too dazed to contribute. She is elated, overjoyed, reeling with gratitude that Pippa would be considerate enough to ask Ada. And that she asked Humphrey—the implications of that are staggering and Hecate’s heart feels so filled to brim with love that it begins overflowing in the form of tears.

She might be embarrassed by this whole ordeal tomorrow, but for now she’s too euphoric to care.

“Anyway, it was a bit more chaotic than anticipated, but you got there eventually,” Humphrey says, sagely, flicking the bells on his jumper as if he’s testing out the sound.

“Might I remind you, Humphrey,” Elodie chides, springing to Pippa’s defence, “that _your_ idea of a proposal was to take me on a tandem donkey ride, and then to ask me, whilst your ridiculous mule chewed on my sleeve, _‘do you fancy getting hitched?’_ ”

Humphrey chortles, hugging Elodie against his chest. “Yes, and might I remind _you,_ Dee, that your reply was, and I quote, _‘I suppose, at this point, I might as well add one more ass to the mix.’_ ”

“Are you two idiots finished?” Pippa’s exasperated voice cuts across the space, echoing off the tiles. It seems to shift the focus of the discussion, hitting Elodie over the head with the weight of what’s actually transpiring.

She buckles, sagging against Humphrey and bursting into tears. “Oh, sweethearts, I love you,” she croons, stepping forwards and sinking to her knees to wrap her arms around both women. She peppers kisses over their foreheads, coating them with her tears, though they have plenty of their own. “I love you. _Both_ of you. Very, _very_ much.”

This time, when Hecate is graced with those words, the exact ones that once confronted her in a cramped, stuffy office and paralysed her with fear, she accepts them with pride.

“My babies are going to marry each other,” Elodie sniffs, which is, admittedly, less ideal.

Pippa strains against her mother’s embrace, wriggling to break free. “Yes, Mother, it’s beautiful. But, on multiple levels, if you could _never,_ under _any_ circumstances, describe it like that again, that would be smashing. You’ll save yourself from a lot of strange questions and me and Hiccup from a lot of therapy.”

Elodie draws away with a chuckle, kissing both of them again before crawling backwards. She beckons to Humphrey, urging him to join her on the blanket. He shuffles towards them, lowering himself down next to his wife. 

“And now you’re both sitting down,” Pippa gripes, elongating the vowels. She glances despairingly at Hecate. _“Fantastic.”_

Four hovering glasses appear and Elodie, who is now pouring out yet more mulled wine, does have the decency to look mildly sheepish. Hecate nurses the newly proffered beverage in her hand, taking a sip. It is almost certainly going to cement what she anticipates will be the most almighty hangover in the record books, but that is a problem for later. 

“Only for a few minutes, honey. Just for the fireworks,” Elodie clarifies.

Pippa’s eyes nearly pop out of their sockets, and Hecate works hard to smother a grin. “The _fireworks?_ ” 

“Yes,” Humphrey nods, taking a swig of his drink. “I’m rather a dab hand at pyrotechnics, as it turns out.”

With a resigned pout, Pippa drops her head against Hecate’s collarbone, grumbling. “I’m sure that the neighbours are going to be thrilled.”

“We’re witches, sweetheart. I think we can manage a silencing spell,” Humphrey retorts drolly.

Pippa mutters something under her breath that is probably best left up to the imagination. The tips of her eyelashes flutter against Hecate’s neck, sending her nerves haywire.

“I’m sorry, my darling,” Pippa whispers against her skin, “it’s a bit less romantic than I had envisioned.”

Hecate laughs, her veins thrumming with wine and warmth and _Pippa._ Pippa most of all. 

“It’s perfect,” she promises, tilting Pippa’s chin up with the crook of her finger and sealing her lips sweetly over her mouth. Pippa melts against her, sighing happily and kissing back with such intensity that Hecate’s brain could generously be described as _mush._

_It’s perfect._

As the fireworks flash across the horizon, Elodie rests her temple against Humphrey’s shoulder. Her delicate fingers are twined through Hecate’s. The lights illuminate Pippa’s face, as if they are highlighting every detail for Hecate’s memory. She’s nestled between Hecate’s legs, half lying down, with her head propped up against Hecate’s stomach. Every time she breathes, Hecate feels it rumbling through her abdomen. She clutches Hecate’s other hand tightly, intermittently bringing it up to her cheek.

They are all connected. Their magic flows between them, strong and alive, passing through each of them like a shared blessing. Like _home._

_Home._

Home is _“Hiccup”_ and _“Pipsqueak”_ and _“darling”_.

Home is birthday cupcakes and leaky pipes and _“I’m afraid it was me”_.

Home is Morgana and Sycorax ignoring their differences to curl like a jigsaw in one armchair.

Home is kitchen explosions and shrieking smoke detectors and pantries stocked with enough jellybeans to sink a cruise ship.

Home is mornings bright with laughter.

Home is Ada’s knowing smiles and Dimity’s audacious wit and Gwen’s incessant fussing.

Home is age-old stories about the heavens and clunky timepieces and _Jillian_.

Home is orchids and gnomes and Mildred destroying her last iota of sanity for the ninth time that week.

Home is pink, _everywhere._

Home is Elodie’s steadfast affection and Humphrey’s incurable antics and _them._

Home is _them._

Home is _“honey”_ and _“sweetheart”_ and _“I’m the luckiest mother in the world”._

Home is _“you owe me a game of chess”_ and _“you’re rather stuck with us”_ and _“smooch it out already”_.

Home is disasters and messes and forgiveness and _hope._

Home is anywhere that her heart is, because Pippa lives there.

Home is _Pippa._

_She’s home._

Together, huddled on a tiny rooftop on the Devonshire coast, they all watch the stars with tired eyes, trading anecdotes and gentle touches and terrible jokes as one day becomes the next. 

The crescent moon smiles above them in the sky, and this time, _dopily,_ Hecate smiles right back.

**Author's Note:**

> Come find me @daphnedumaurigay on Tumblr - I don’t post much Hicsqueak but I would love to chat to some of you there! I'd love some new friends. :)
> 
> Please leave a comment and let me know which bits you like! Writing is hard so it will give me a boost. :)


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